Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/110

104 change their hereditary customs or invest them with new ideas. Good and faithful enough they were until the impression was fixed upon them, that they were losing their national "costumbres."

A gentleman who often visited our house, and who had been long a resident of the country, and who knew full well the importance of the mozo, and that the respectability of our household was at a low ebb without that all-important adjunct, kindly loaned us one of his trusties. Many times we were the recipients from him of this order of hospitality.

I used to think there could be no better opening for a good, paying business than for some enterprising Mexican to establish an employment bureau for mozos, and exact of them that their families reside in the same city.

Cosme, our borrowed mozo, was duly installed, with highly gratifying results. He was several degrees above the common herd, and more trusty than the best, having been trained by Doña Angelina, the wife of our friend. Cosme had a most benignant face, with an open, beaming countenance, and every duty he performed was done with the zeal and alacrity which had characterized no other mozo, within the range of my experience. The wish in my heart that took precedence of all others, at this time, was, that I should not be forced to the necessity of hearing from him that forever emphatic avowal which had ere now well-nigh crazed me, "No es costumbre!" I knew, if he once began, my peace of mind and happiness were gone.

To prevent it, every species of a now highly cultivated ingenuity was called to my assistance. The possibility began to haunt me like a grim specter. It was ever present day or night, awake or asleep. It never relinquished its hold upon my faculties. It was written on the wall, look where I would. It stalked up and down the street defiantly. It was astride every burro, and waved its hands at me, every turn I made in the house. My brain was on fire, my senses dazed. Where fly for relief? One could hope for a respite from the haunting custom officials, but this, all-pervading, deep-seated, and