The interest of the manager did not extend beyond the cut-and-dried
formalities common to all Mexicans. In spite of his honeyed words, it
was evident he looked upon me as a necessary evil, purposely come to the
hacienda to seek food and lodging, and to be gotten rid of as soon as
possible, compatible with the sacred Arabian rules of hospitality. I had
not yet learned that a letter of introduction in Latin America, given on
the slightest provocation, is of just the grade of importance such
custom would warrant. Not that Don Carlos was rude. Indeed, he strove
outwardly to be highly _simpatico_. But one read the insincerity
underneath by a kind of intuition, and longed for the abrupt but
honestly frank Texan.

The two front corners of the estate residence were taken up by the
hacienda store and church respectively--a handy arrangement by virtue of
which whatever went out the pay window to the peons (and it was not
much) came in again at one or the other of the corner doors. Adjoining
the building and half surrounding it was an entire village, with a
flowery plaza and promenades for its inhabitants. The owners of the
estate were less churlishly selfish than their prototypes in our own
country, in that they permitted the public, which is to say their own
workmen and families, to go freely anywhere in the family residence and
its patio, except into the dwelling-rooms proper.

When darkness came on we sat in the piazza garden overlooking the
mule-yard. The evening church service over, the estate priest came to
join us, putting on his huge black "Texas" hat and lighting a cigarette
on the chapel threshold. He wore an innumerable series of long black
robes, which still did not conceal the fact that the curve from chest to
waist was the opposite of that common to sculptured figures, and his
hand-shake was particularly soft and snaky. He quickly took charge of