Page:The Criterion - Volume 4.djvu/511

 them quizzically, while the fat wife of the huarache man reiterates: 'Very fine work. Very fine. Much work!'

Leather men usually seem to have their wives with them.

'How much?'

'Twenty reales.'

'Twenty!'—in a voice of surprise and pained indignation.

'How much do you give?'

You refuse to answer. Instead, you put the huaraches to your nose. The huarache man looks at his wife, and they laugh aloud.

'They smell,' you say.

'No, señor, they don’t smell'—and the two go off into fits of laughter.

'Yes, they smell. It is not American leather.'

'Yes, señor, it is American leather. They don’t smell, señor. No, they don’t smell.'—He coaxes you till you wouldn’t believe your own nose.

'Yes, they smell.'

'How much do you give?'

'Nothing, because they smell.'

And you give another sniff, though it is painfully unnecessary. And in spite of your refusal to bid, the man and wife go into fits of laughter to see you painfully sniffing.

You lay down the sandals and shake your head.

'How much do you offer?' reiterates the man, gaily.

You shake your head mournfully, and move away. The leather man and his wife look at one another and go off into another fit of laughter, because you smelt the huaraches, and said they stank.

They did. The natives use human excrement for tanning leather. When Bernal Diaz came with Cortes to the great market-place of Mexico City, in Montezuma’s day, he saw the little pots of human excrement in rows for sale,