Argosy All-Story Weekly — "Sea Marauders" — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

484 I pointed out that so long as Madero and Huerta and Villa kept up the fire- works south of the border it was dif- ficult to observe the dignity and achievement stuff on account of the smoke. “ Under Diaz we have enjoyed near- ly thirty years of peace while, within the same period, your own troops have been employed, I believe, in Cuba, in the Philippines, and in China. “Tf you were in Mexico City to- night you would not know that there is a revolution going on. The band is playing, as usual, in the Alameda; the carriages are rolling down the Paseo de la Reforma; it is Carmen night at the opera. I have, by to-day’s post, let- ters from my mother and sisters. They are quite undisturbed.” Thus, diplomatically, Salvadore Mendez would dispose of the unrest in Mexico. Our thriving inland city was a thousand miles north of the border; the affairs of Mexico and Mexicans were never of acute interest. The As- sociated Press carried all the big de- velopments. ‘As the consular agent of our sister republic, Mendez occupied a shabby little office in a third-rate office building. OR the most part his work seemed to be the off-hand assistance he rendered his humble fellow coun- trymen in matters appertaining to their employment. Where once the I[rish- man with crowbar, pick, and spade did the railroad track work of a nation, the Mexican peon now held full sway. The Santa Fe alone employed them out on the line by the thousands. Into the office of Mendez they would come daily in clusters. A man with a - bandaged hand smelling of arnica; an- other with a piece of paper that needed translating; droves of them with the multitudinous complications and com- plaints of transportation, assignments to bunk cars, the matters of wages— blackish-looking toilers with lowering, expressionless faces. ” ; Pf § 4 : z ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. All of this, though, was mediocre and commonplace, an annoying stream to be shunted aside during the call of any representative of the press. Mendez never had any news of im- portance to give us, but he did have uncommonly good cigars. And a hand- colored great seal of his country hang- ing over his desk made us feel, as he did, that somehow we were in touch with big international events. The news of the town was just the usual sort of stuff—murders, and fires, and the endless political squabbles of our paper with “Gang Rule.” In the office of Mendez was always the un- realized possibility of.something color- ful; a thin thread of interest leading back to something wild, and foreign, and exotic. It was the cub idea of news value, the persistent passion for. a sensation. “The morning papers say the rebels are right outside of Chihuahua. They expect to take the city in a day or so. You couldn’t, could you, Mr. Mendez, give a fellow an inside tip on some- thing? “You know what I mean. One of those grapevine bits of information that all of you consuls must have. Why, right here in this town we could, maybe, beat the Associated Press. Think what it would mean, say, if the fall of Chihuahua could be announced from this office—” APOLEON, surrounded by his marshals, could not have been half so portentous. Mendez rose from his creaking chair and walked the constricted floor space with his fat little hands clasped behind his back. “Why, my good friend, does the press continually dwell upon these purely local adventures? Why don’t you write pages about Mexico’s beauty, its art, culture, chivalry; its resplend- ence and its. grandeur? If I could but take you down the Calle de los Pla- teros, the street of the silversmiths—” For the quarter of an hour he talked, SO 5 J aap ese =a yy tt =—S at ae LL PIER SEE Cami ra arr geass papas > y = pe a a" = ; 4 padbigee ay ee, .> >.< Y. - - ~ re on Se ern ae? ee a CROOKS Conn RE ae gi nas eae