I'll be back inside of an hour."
Whereupon Corporal Macey, being a man of iron self-control,
refrained from turning a double back sommersault and mildly called
the prisoner's attention to a little point of Zone police rules he
had overlooked.
If every other known form of amusement absolutely failed it was
still the dry, or tourist season, and poured down from the States
hordes of unconscious comedians, or investigators who rushed two
whole days about the Isthmus, taking care not to get into any
dirty places, and rushed home again to tell an eager public all
about it. Sometimes the sight-seers came from the opposite end of
the earth, a little band of South Americans in tongueless awe at
the undreamed monster of work about them, yet struggling to keep
their fancied despite of the "yanqui," to which the "yanqui" is so
serenely indifferent. Priests from this southland were especially
numerous. The week never passed that a group of them might not be
seen peering over the dizzy precipice of Gatun locks and crossing
themselves ostentatiously as they turned away.
One does not, at least in a few months, feel the "sameness" of
climate at Panama and "long again to see spring grow out of
winter." Yet there is something, perhaps, in the popular belief
that even northern energy evaporates in this tropical land.
Pages:
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171