Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/297

CH. XIX.] ." "What," said I, "and is he, therefore, not an honourable man?" He drew up his lips as if they had expressed more than he intended, and, striking off the ashes of his cigar with the little finger of the same hand in which he held it, took two reviving puffs, and muttered, quien sabe!

This expression, which literally means, "who knows!" is generally intended to convey the sense of "I don't know." As in the course of a person's travels, he seldom meets with any body who can give him any information on the subject of his inquiry, quien sabe is, nine times out of ten, the answer he receives to his interrogatories. It is, however, sometimes meant to express a doubt, the proportion of which is to be ascertained by the height of the shrug of the shoulders of the party speaking, also by the duration of the position: the head is thrown on one side, and the eyes cast obliquely downwards in the opposite direction: as the quien sabe, on this occasion, was expressed with all these