The Mena star., 1898-09-14
THE OBSTINATE sPAN1ARD.
ne Has n Way of Making Mere Facts
Fit in with His Theory of
the World.

.Well, / suppose by this time your
,r;ends, the Spanish, will begin to be-
I;eye they really did get the hot end of
4 at Santiago" said one Long Island
suhurbanite to another.
..Oh. no. said the man, wlso lived
- Snain before he settled in Flatbush
"Not at all"
"What!"
1T saw not at all. You don't under
stand the Spanish people. | don't I'M
derstand them, for that matter, but l
have picked up one or two points in the
course of long experience. Let me
tell you story in illustration One
summer evening, when was at school
IN England, not in Spain, four or five
Of us boys were watching the sunset.
presently young Spaniard who had
only recently arrived-and he happened
"a be from Havana. too-came and
ioined us. We had just been wondering
WHY the sun seemed to get so flat as it
rot near to the horizon. We all noticed
that the sun did seem to flatten, and we
all had different ways of accounting
for the phenomenon. BY way of be-
;no civil to this foreigner. who under
stood hardly six words of English at
that time. one of us told him in French
what we were talking about. He nod
ded and smiled. just to show that he
understood, but he was standing with
his back to the sun and didn't turn
around to look at it.
"The acting interpreter was instruct
ed to ask the Spanish gentleman il he
could tell us why the sun seemed to be
swelling out right and left like that.
Rnt the Spanish gentleman only smiled
.affably, still keeping his back TO the
sun. Then we suggested to him all our
different explanations, one after an
other, but he dismissed every one of
them with grave, courteous smile and
a shake of his head. AT last, when our
Interpreter once more demanded of him
the Havana theory OF the thing. he
vouchsafed to say in French:
"It does not look so because it cam
not. The sun is round And all that
we could do could not make that Span
lard turn round and look at the sun
for himself
Him. said the untraveled American,
che must have been particularly null
ish."
Not particularly" said the other. IF
itcomes to being mulish can give other
instances just as strong. Do you know
how they drive mules in the Pyrenees
No, they don't light fires under them;
that would make them go too fast
I mean on those mountain roads. The
driver gets together a lot of stones on
the box beside him, and every now
and then. when the mules get too slow,
he Just fires a rock at the leaders head.
At least that was what my driver did
and it interested me very much, for
it was when / first went to Spain, and
every thing int resttSi NE. So asked
my driver why he didn't use whip
He looked at me very seriously and
said that Spanish mule didn't need
q whip. / thought he was making fun
of me, so climbed out on the seat be
side him and polxed at the wheeler with
an alpenstock had strapped up with
my waterproof and things. Well, had
to stop it and apologize or get out anc
fight the driver on that narrow. lonely
roadside"
"Why' Didn't your plan work as
we'll as the bombarding?"
1T made the mules go all right, but
the driver said it didn't. lie said they
were noteommon mules. but Pyreneear
mules of blue blood, and that if | die
it again they would be insuted ant
die right there rather than haul us {
step further. He himself was very
angry and swore between his teeth, ant
he fired fresh broadside Of rocks JUS
when the mules were really doing un
usually well.
But about the coolest piece of pc
lite obstinacy | ever met in Spain wa!
at little country railroad station.
was so inconsiderate as to ask the sta
ton master if he thought my trais
would be on time. | ought to have
known that Spanish trains never ar.
on time, as we understand the term
The answer got was enough to viii
me. The station master smiled mag
unanimously, and bowed and said: 'Sil
embargo. senor' ('Without doubt, sir)
But the schedule time came and nj
train. ] couldn't say any more to TIL
station master on that subject, but III
saw me look at the clock once or twice
AS 1t turned out, the train was unusual
" punctual-only 40 minutes late. TIL
station master gave me another low boy
as | got on board and then | saw hin
dellheratelv climb ON the back of