Part 27 (2/2)

”I see,” I said, ”I hadn't understood. I thought there really was a revolution here in Mexico.”

”No,” said Villa, shaking his head, ”been no revolution down here for years--not since Diaz. The picture companies came in and took the whole thing over; they made us a fair offer--so much a reel straight out, and a royalty, and let us divide up the territory as we liked. The first film we done was the bombardment of Vera Cruz. Say, that was a dandy; did you see it?”

”No,” I said.

”They had us all in that,” he continued. ”I done an American Marine. Lots of people think it all real when they see it.”

”Why,” I said, ”nearly everybody does. Even the President--”

”Oh, I guess he knows,” said Villa, ”but, you see, there's tons of money in it and it's good for business, and he's too decent a man to give It away. Say, I heard the boy saying there's a war in Europe. I wonder what company got that up, eh? But I don't believe it'll draw. There ain't the scenery for it that we have in Mexico.”

”Alas!” murmured Raymon. ”Our beautiful Mexico. To what is she fallen! Needing only water, air, light and soil to make her--”

”Come on, Raymon,” I said, ”let's go home.”

XIV. Over the Grape Juice; or, The Peacemakers

Characters

MR. W. JENNINGS BRYAN.

DR. DAVID STARR JORDAN.

A PHILANTHROPIST.

MR. NORMAN ANGELL.

A LADY PACIFIST.

A NEGRO PRESIDENT.

AN EMINENT DIVINE.

THE MAN ON THE STREET.

THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

And many others.

”War,” said the Negro President of Haiti, ”is a sad spectacle. It shames our polite civilisation.”

As he spoke, he looked about him at the a.s.sembled company around the huge dinner table, glittering with cut gla.s.s and white linen, and brilliant with hot-house flowers.

”A sad spectacle,” he repeated, rolling his big eyes in his black and yellow face that was melancholy with the broken pathos of the African race.

The occasion was a notable one. It was the banquet of the Peacemakers' Conference of 1917 and the company gathered about the board was as notable as it was numerous.

At the head of the table the genial Mr. Jennings Bryan presided as host, his broad countenance beaming with amiability, and a tall flagon of grape juice standing beside his hand. A little further down the table one saw the benevolent head and placid physiognomy of Mr. Norman Angell, bowed forward as if in deep calculation. Within earshot of Mr. Bryan, but not listening to him, one recognised without the slightest difficulty Dr. David Starr Jordan, the distinguished ichthyologist and director in chief of the World's Peace Foundation, while the bland features of a gentleman from China, and the presence of a yellow delegate from the Mosquito Coast, gave ample evidence that the company had been gathered together without reference to colour, race, religion, education, or other prejudices whatsoever.

But it would be out of the question to indicate by name the whole of the notable a.s.semblage. Indeed, certain of the guests, while carrying in their faces and att.i.tudes something strangely and elusively familiar, seemed in a sense to be nameless, and to represent rather types and abstractions than actual personalities. Such was the case, for instance, with a female member of the company, seated in a place of honour near the host, whose demure garb and gentle countenance seemed to indicate her as a Lady Pacifist, but denied all further identification.

The mild, ecclesiastical features of a second guest, so entirely Christian in its expression as to be almost devoid of expression altogether, marked him at once as An Eminent Divine, but, while puzzlingly suggestive of an actual and well-known person, seemed to elude exact recognition. His accent, when he presently spoke, stamped him as British and his garb was that of the Established Church. Another guest appeared to answer to the general designation of Capitalist or Philanthropist, and seemed from his prehensile grasp upon his knife and fork to typify the Money Power. In front of this guest, doubtless with a view of indicating his extreme wealth and the consideration in which he stood, was placed a floral decoration representing a broken bank, with the figure of a ruined depositor entwined among the debris.

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