Further Foolishness by Stephen Leacock (best self help books to read .TXT) 📗

"'The bearer is on an important mission connected with American rights in Mexico. If anyone shoots him he will be held to a strict accountability. W. W.' Ah! Excellent! He will be compelled to send in an itemised account. Excellent! And this other, let me see. 'If anybody interferes with the bearer, I will knock his face in. T. R.' Admirable. This is, if anything, better than the other for use in our country. It appeals to our quick Mexican natures. It is, as we say, simpatico. It touches us."

"It is meant to," I said.

"And may I ask," said Raymon, "the nature of your business with Villa?"

"We are old friends," I answered. "I used to know him years ago when he kept a Mexican cigar store in Buffalo. It occurred to me that I might be able to help the cause of peaceful intervention. I have already had a certain experience in Turkey. I am commissioned to make General Villa an offer."

"I see," said Raymon. "In that case, if we are to find Villa let us make all haste forward. And first we must direct ourselves yonder"—he pointed in a vague way towards the mountains—"where we must presently leave our car and go on foot, to the camp of General Carranza."

"Carranza!" I exclaimed. "But he is fighting Villa!"

"Exactly. It is possible—not certain—but possible, that he knows where Villa is. In our Mexico when two of our generalistas are fighting in the mountains, they keep coming across one another. It is hard to avoid it."

"Good," I said. "Let us go forward."

It was two days later that we reached Carranza's camp in the mountains.

We found him just at dusk seated at a little table beneath a tree.

His followers were all about, picketing their horses and lighting fires.

The General, buried in a book before him, noticed neither the movements of his own men nor our approach.

I must say that I was surprised beyond measure at his appearance.

The popular idea of General Carranza as a rude bandit chief is entirely erroneous.

I saw before me a quiet, scholarly-looking man, bearing every mark of culture and refinement. His head was bowed over the book in front of him, which I noticed with astonishment and admiration was Todhunter's Algebra. Close at his hand I observed a work on Decimal Fractions, while, from time to time, I saw the General lift his eyes and glance keenly at a multiplication table that hung on a bough beside him.

"You must wait a few moments," said an aide-de-camp, who stood beside us. "The General is at work on a simultaneous equation!"

"Is it possible?" I said in astonishment.

The aide-de-camp smiled.

"Soldiering to-day, my dear Senor," he said, "is an exact science. On this equation will depend our entire food supply for the next week."

"When will he get it done?" I asked anxiously.

"Simultaneously," said the aide-de-camp.

The General looked up at this moment and saw us.

"Well?" he asked.

"Your Excellency," said the aide-de-camp, "there is a stranger here on a visit of investigation to Mexico."

"Shoot him!" said the General, and turned quickly to his work.

The aide-de-camp saluted.

"When?" he asked.

"As soon as he likes," said the General.

"You are fortunate, indeed," said the aide-de-camp, in a tone of animation, as he led me away, still accompanied by Raymon. "You might have been kept waiting round for days. Let us get ready at once. You would like to be shot, would you not, smoking a cigarette, and standing beside your grave? Luckily, we have one ready. Now, if you will wait a moment, I will bring the photographer and his machine. There is still light enough, I think. What would you like it called? The Fate of a Spy? That's good, isn't it? Our syndicate can always work up that into a two-reel film. All the rest of it—the camp, the mountains, the general, the funeral and so on—we can do to-morrow without you."

He was all eagerness as he spoke.

"One moment," I interrupted. "I am sure there is some mistake. I only wished to present certain papers and get a safe conduct from the General to go and see Villa."

The aide-de-camp stopped abruptly.

"Ah!" he said. "You are not here for a picture. A thousand pardons. Give me your papers. One moment—I will return to the General and explain."

He vanished, and Raymon and I waited in the growing dusk.

"No doubt the General supposed," explained Raymon, as he lighted a cigarette, "that you were here for las machinas, the moving pictures."

In a few minutes the aide-de-camp returned.

"Come," he said, "the General will see you now."

We returned to where we had left Carranza.

The General rose to meet me with outstretched hand and with a gesture of simple cordiality.

"You must pardon my error," he said.

"Not at all," I said.

"It appears you do not desire to be shot."

"Not at present."

"Later, perhaps," said the General. "On your return, no doubt, provided," he added with grave courtesy that sat well on him, "that you do return. My aide-de-camp shall make a note of it. But at present you wish to be guided to Francesco Villa?"

"If it is possible."

"Quite easy. He is at present near here, in fact much nearer than he has any right to be." The General frowned. "We found this spot first. The light is excellent and the mountains, as you have seen, are wonderful for our pictures. This is, by every rule of decency, our scenery. Villa has no right to it. This is our Revolution"—the General spoke with rising animation—"not his. When you see the fellow, tell him from me—or tell his manager—that he must either move his revolution further away or, by heaven, I'll—I'll use force against him. But stop," he checked himself. "You wish to see Villa. Good. You have only to follow the straight track over the mountain there. He is just beyond, at the little village in the hollow, El Corazon de las Quertas."

The General shook hands and seated himself again at his work. The interview was at an end. We withdrew.

The next morning we followed without difficulty the path indicated. A few hours' walk over the mountain pass brought us to a little straggling village of adobe houses, sleeping drowsily in the sun.

There