BRADSHAW'S TOMBSTONE
335
Senor Orquienz emerged from a thicket of potted palms, and
shook hands with a delicate reticence toward his failure to keep the
earlier appointment at the Polar.
Bradshaw handed over his report and said, without much confi–
dence: "I don't suppose this will mean very much until-if and until
-we get the team into the field. But it will help to give you the
broad picture."
The picture it gave to Senor Orquienz as he spread the docu–
ment on his knife-edged gabardine trousers w,as indeed broad, but
not pleasing.
It has been suggested that Senor Orquienz was a foolish man,
but he was not a fool about the thing that interested him most–
money. On the scene of money, his gristly, overbred nose would
twitch like that of a ferret within the ambience of a rabbit. Pointed
towards Bradshaw's muffled New Deal prose, it failed to twitch. For
the first time, it may be said, Senor Orquienz really got the word
about Bradshaw's mission. He could find no angle. This talk of
"teams" distressed him.
One section dealt with the need to relieve the peons from
bondage to local usurers. It was probably this section which most dis–
tressed Senor Orquienz, and the incisive pen picture of a village shy–
lock drawn by Bradshaw could hardly be expected to excite his sym–
pathetic indignation for such a man would, more than likely, be one
of his own agents. "Crop loans" of the type envisaged by the report
would remove an important source of Senor Orquienz' income. Fur–
thermore, the whole project would be under authority emanating
from the capital at levels where Senor Orquienz was aware that
his
name, if known, was known unfavorably. But most of all, it was the
picture of the whole enterprise as a cooperative thing which shocked
him. Canning and processing cooperatives, fertilizer cooperatives,
with no mention anywhere of profits.
The word cooperative had for Senor Orquienz the same horror
and scandal as the word communism had for another generation.
Quite simply this naturally malevolent man opposed socialism, not
because it was bad, but because it was in aim good. Bradshaw, whose
report was brilliantly contrived to cosset the current progressive feel–
ings of enlightened American opinion, was thus calculated to arouse
the malice of Senor Orquienz.
