Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/415

Rh people, when a marchanta (customer) appears, the shopkeeper begins to pay her compliments, and say things with double meanings. She usually answers in the same manner, which causes the shopkeeper to laugh. If the servant is at all attractive, and the clerk understands that she is a match for him, and sees that she receives his compliments with pleasure, he takes her basket, keeps on talking to her, and tries to keep her as long as possible. They carry on something like the following dialogue by the clerk saying to her:

"Que cosa se le ofrece, mi vida?" (" What do you want, my life?")

"No se enoje porque hasta eso sale perdiendo” ("Don't get mad, for you will only be the loser").

“No Ie importa, anda dispacheme," she replies ("Mind your own business, come wait on me").

"Pues deme la mano y digame como se llama" ("Well, give me your hand and tell me your name"), he rejoins.

Her reply to this is full of stinging sarcasm, which finds vent in the following way:

"Ora si! que encamisado, tan igualado! Parece que soy su juguete. Anda dispacheme y no esté moliendo que se me hace tarde y la niña me regaña porque me tardo con el mandaao" ("Well, I should say you were a naked upstart. One would think I was your plaything. Come, wait on me, and don't bother me, for it is getting late, and the mistress will scold me for being so long doing the errands").

When he sees she is a little angry, he gives her back the basket with the things she has bought. She then throws the money to him on the counter, in an angry manner, for him to take out the cost of what she has bought. When he gives her back the change, he takes her hand, which she pulls away, after he has given it a squeeze. The next day she returns to the same shop or stand, but this time she presents herself a little less reluctantly than before, and without minding at all what is said to her. On the contrary, she leads him on, by throwing little stones at him or giving him a sly pinch.

At the end of a month or two they make an appointment to meet