Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/290

 280 her hands to her frock, as a courtesying girl would do, and sighed and smiled forth her soul for a sixpence. We were taken aback by the sudden unmasking of her battery, and staggered forth a broken promise, broken in language then, and in fact afterward, that when we returned we would grant her favor. But we did not return.



The beggars on this route have many arts. They whine and they smile. Blind men play the guitar and violin prettily; and one them would not desist, though bribed with a medio, saying, with true Mexican independence, that "I play for the pleasure of it! Money! that is a mere trifling consideration." Old men and old women abound. The former whine, the latter grin. A jolly type of this last came at us in San Juan and fairly beguiled our pocket of a penny by her bland mutterings and beaming eyes. Two ways I have learned of treating these visitors. One is to say in broken Spanish, "I don't understand you. If you will speak in English, I will give you a medio." This Irish bull answers the purpose of getting up a laugh at their expense, and of nonplusing their wits for a moment. They are not ready for the proposition. Another is to give them a piece of bread or a banana. They reverse every thing here; and if you give them bread when they ask for a stone, or metal, which is stone actually, they are not pleased with your action any more than your children would be in the