Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

44 GEOFFREY HOUSEHOLD The nearest town was Posadas, where the train ferry crosses the Parana from Paraguay to Argentina. I used to go there three or four times a year to keep an eye on the discharge of any of our machinery from the river steamers, and arrange for its transport up country. You could drive a truck from Posadas to the estancia —just—but it was more comfortable to ride. Posadas was not much of a town. A lot of dim lights, but no bright ones except the railway coaches and the Estrella de la Banda. The Estrella was a far better joint than you would have expected to find in a little river port—not at all the usual pulperia with a couple of half-witted girls in a dusty corner and drunks | sleeping it off outside the door. Posadas had a small floating population of travellers between Paraguay and Argentina—some of them men of distinction or money, or even both—and Don Luis, who owned the Estrella, found it worth his while to feed them decently and provide en- tertainment. ‘There were plenty of first-class passengers who made a point of staying the night, whenever they had to cross the Parana, just in order to visit Don Luis’s joint. He was a big buck of an Italian—padded shoulders, local poli- tics, and all—but he was born in the pampa and he flattered him- self that he was an Argentine of the Argentines. Anyone who addressed him as Luigi instead of Luis was safer the other side of the river. 1 knew him well enough to dislike him thoroughly. He didn’t suspect it. You can go on detesting a man for years in Spanish so long as you have good manners. ‘That’s quite im- possible in English. There was a north wind blowing on that last visit of mine to Posadas. Just like today. It always brings the damp heat and the insects. And thirst. The boat from Buenos Aires had not arrived; so, instead of the drinks with the captain which I had been looking forward to, I went into the Estrella de la Banda. You could trust Luis’s whisky. I?ll say that for him. It was early, and the place hadn’t got going. Luis had a new girl. ‘“'That’s a little beauty! ’’ I said to him. She wasn’t my sort, he told me. She was meant for travelling senators and so forth. | ‘“ She’s only a mestiza,"’ | said. ‘‘ What’s so special about her?”’ He whispered to me what was special about her. I didn’t believe him. But one of those senators off the international train might possibly want to believe him. I sat down beside her. She wasn’t more than seventeen, and she was wearing a frock of innocent respectability just like any comiclooks.comn)