The Reign of Greed Part 19

"My opinion?" he retorted. "Study how other nations prosper, and then do as they do."

"And why do they prosper, Senor Simoun?"

Simoun replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

"The port works, which weigh so heavily upon commerce, and the port not yet completed!" sighed Don Timoteo Pelaez. "A Penelope's web, as my son says, that is spun and unspun. The taxes--"

"You complaining!" exclaimed another. "Just as the General has decreed the destruction of houses of light materials! [35] And you with a shipment of galvanized iron!"

"Yes," rejoined Don Timoteo, "but look what that decree cost me! Then, the destruction will not be carried out for a month, not until Lent begins, and other shipments may arrive. I would have wished them destroyed right away, but--Besides, what are the owners of those houses going to buy from me if they are all poor, all equally beggars?"

"You can always buy up their shacks for a trifle."

"And afterwards have the decree revoked and sell them back at double the price--that's business!"

Simoun smiled his frigid smile. Seeing Quiroga approach, he left the querulous merchants to greet the future consul, who on catching sight of him lost his satisfied expression and a.s.signed a countenance like those of the merchants, while he bent almost double.

Quiroga respected the jeweler greatly, not only because he knew him to be very wealthy, but also on account of his rumored influence with the Captain-General. It was reported that Simoun favored Quiroga's ambitions, that he was an advocate for the consulate, and a certain newspaper hostile to the Chinese had alluded to him in many paraphrases, veiled allusions, and suspension points, in the celebrated controversy with another sheet that was favorable to the queued folk. Some prudent persons added with winks and half-uttered words that his Black Eminence was advising the General to avail himself of the Chinese in order to humble the tenacious pride of the natives.

"To hold the people in subjection," he was reported to have said, "there's nothing like humiliating them and humbling them in their own eyes."

To this end an opportunity had soon presented itself. The guilds of mestizos and natives were continually watching one another, venting their bellicose spirits and their activities in jealousy and distrust. At ma.s.s one day the gobernadorcillo of the natives was seated on a bench to the right, and, being extremely thin, happened to cross one of his legs over the other, thus adopting a nonchalant att.i.tude, in order to expose his thighs more and display his pretty shoes. The gobernadorcillo of the guild of mestizos, who was seated on the opposite bench, as he had bunions, and could not cross his legs on account of his obesity, spread his legs wide apart to expose a plain waistcoat adorned with a beautiful gold chain set with diamonds. The two cliques comprehended these maneuvers and joined battle. On the following Sunday all the mestizos, even the thinnest, had large paunches and spread their legs wide apart as though on horseback, while the natives placed one leg over the other, even the fattest, there being one cabeza de barangay who turned a somersault. Seeing these movements, the Chinese all adopted their own peculiar att.i.tude, that of sitting as they do in their shops, with one leg drawn back and upward, the other swinging loose. There resulted protests and pet.i.tions, the police rushed to arms ready to start a civil war, the curates rejoiced, the Spaniards were amused and made money out of everybody, until the General settled the quarrel by ordering that every one should sit as the Chinese did, since they were the heaviest contributors, even though they were not the best Catholics. The difficulty for the mestizos and natives then was that their trousers were too tight to permit of their imitating the Chinese. But to make the intention of humiliating them the more evident, the measure was carried out with great pomp and ceremony, the church being surrounded by a troop of cavalry, while all those within were sweating. The matter was carried to the Cortes, but it was repeated that the Chinese, as the ones who paid, should have their way in the religious ceremonies, even though they apostatized and laughed at Christianity immediately after. The natives and the mestizos had to be content, learning thus not to waste time over such fatuity. [36]

Quiroga, with his smooth tongue and humble smile, was lavishly and flatteringly attentive to Simoun. His voice was caressing and his bows numerous, but the jeweler cut his blandishments short by asking brusquely:

"Did the bracelets suit her?"

At this question all Quiroga's liveliness vanished like a dream. His caressing voice became plaintive; he bowed lower, gave the Chinese salutation of raising his clasped hands to the height of his face, and groaned: "Ah, Senor Simoun! I'm lost, I'm ruined!" [37]

"How, Quiroga, lost and ruined when you have so many bottles of champagne and so many guests?"

Quiroga closed his eyes and made a grimace. Yes, the affair of that afternoon, that affair of the bracelets, had ruined him. Simoun smiled, for when a Chinese merchant complains it is because all is going well, and when he makes a show that things are booming it is quite certain that he is planning an a.s.signment or flight to his own country.

"You didn't know that I'm lost, I'm ruined? Ah, Senor Simoun, I'm _busted!_" To make his condition plainer, he ill.u.s.trated the word by making a movement as though he were falling in collapse.

Simoun wanted to laugh, but restrained himself and said that he knew nothing, nothing at all, as Quiroga led him to a room and closed the door. He then explained the cause of his misfortune.

Three diamond bracelets that he had secured from Simoun on pretense of showing them to his wife were not for her, a poor native shut up in her room like a Chinese woman, but for a beautiful and charming lady, the friend of a powerful man, whose influence was needed by him in a certain deal in which he could clear some six thousand pesos. As he did not understand feminine tastes and wished to be gallant, the Chinese had asked for the three finest bracelets the jeweler had, each priced at three to four thousand pesos. With affected simplicity and his most caressing smile, Quiroga had begged the lady to select the one she liked best, and the lady, more simple and caressing still, had declared that she liked all three, and had kept them.

Simoun burst out into laughter.

"Ah, sir, I'm lost, I'm ruined!" cried the Chinese, slapping himself lightly with his delicate hands; but the jeweler continued his laughter.

"Ugh, bad people, surely not a real lady," went on the Chinaman, shaking his head in disgust. "What! She has no decency, while me, a Chinaman, me always polite! Ah, surely she not a real lady--a _cigarrera_ has more decency!"

"They've caught you, they've caught you!" exclaimed Simoun, poking him in the chest.

"And everybody's asking for loans and never pays--what about that? Clerks, officials, lieutenants, soldiers--" he checked them off on his long-nailed fingers--"ah, Senor Simoun, I'm lost, I'm _busted_!"

"Get out with your complaints," said Simoun. "I've saved you from many officials that wanted money from you. I've lent it to them so that they wouldn't bother you, even when I knew that they couldn't pay."

"But, Senor Simoun, you lend to officials; I lend to women, sailors, everybody."

"I bet you get your money back."

"Me, money back? Ah, surely you don't understand! When it's lost in gambling they never pay. Besides, you have a consul, you can force them, but I haven't."

Simoun became thoughtful. "Listen, Quiroga," he said, somewhat abstractedly, "I'll undertake to collect what the officers and sailors owe you. Give me their notes."

Quiroga again fell to whining: they had never given him any notes.

"When they come to you asking for money, send them to me. I want to help you."

The grateful Quiroga thanked him, but soon fell to lamenting again about the bracelets. "A _cigarrera_ wouldn't be so shameless!" he repeated.

"The devil!" exclaimed Simoun, looking askance at the Chinese, as though studying him. "Exactly when I need the money and thought that you could pay me! But it can all be arranged, as I don't want you to fail for such a small amount. Come, a favor, and I'll reduce to seven the nine thousand pesos you owe me. You can get anything you wish through the Customs--boxes of lamps, iron, copper, gla.s.sware, Mexican pesos--you furnish arms to the conventos, don't you?"

The Chinese nodded affirmation, but remarked that he had to do a good deal of bribing. "I furnish the padres everything!"

"Well, then," added Simoun in a low voice, "I need you to get in for me some boxes of rifles that arrived this evening. I want you to keep them in your warehouse; there isn't room for all of them in my house."

Quiroga began to show symptoms of fright.

"Don't get scared, you don't run any risk. These rifles are to be concealed, a few at a time, in various dwellings, then a search will be inst.i.tuted, and many people will be sent to prison. You and I can make a haul getting them set free. Understand me?"

Quiroga wavered, for he was afraid of firearms. In his desk he had an empty revolver that he never touched without turning his head away and closing his eyes.

"If you can't do it, I'll have to apply to some one else, but then I'll need the nine thousand pesos to cross their palms and shut their eyes."

"All right, all right!" Quiroga finally agreed. "But many people will be arrested? There'll be a search, eh?"

When Quiroga and Simoun returned to the sala they found there, in animated conversation, those who had finished their dinner, for the champagne had loosened their tongues and stirred their brains. They were talking rather freely.

In a group where there were a number of government clerks, some ladies, and Don Custodio, the topic was a commission sent to India to make certain investigations about footwear for the soldiers.

"Who compose it?" asked an elderly lady.

"A colonel, two other officers, and his Excellency's nephew."

"Four?" rejoined a clerk. "What a commission! Suppose they disagree--are they competent?"

"That's what I asked," replied a clerk. "It's said that one civilian ought to go, one who has no military prejudices--a shoemaker, for instance."

"That's right," added an importer of shoes, "but it wouldn't do to send an Indian or a Chinaman, and the only Peninsular shoemaker demanded such large fees--"

"But why do they have to make any investigations about footwear?" inquired the elderly lady. "It isn't for the Peninsular artillerymen. The Indian soldiers can go barefoot, as they do in their towns." [38]

"Exactly so, and the treasury would save more," corroborated another lady, a widow who was not satisfied with her pension.