an
excerpt from...
The Adventures of a Tropical Tramp
by Harry Foster
CHAPTER TWELVE - IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE
Upon my return from Bolivia and Northern Chile, I was summoned to the American Legation in Lima.
"The new Ambassador will be down here in a few days," the chargé d'affaires informed me. "My own staff is leaving with me, and there will be no one in the Embassy who is familiar with the city. I'd like you to help us out for a few weeks. You'll only rank as a clerk, of course, but if it will make you feel more important, we'll call you an attaché."
Although I had been warned when I first came to Peru that a self-boasted tramp might have difficulty in finding employment, I had been receiving offers of positions on an average of once every month since landing. As in the present case, this was due principally to the fact that my name, appearing each week in The Leader, had given me a great deal of free publicity, and that any Anglo-Saxon concern in temporary need of another English-speaking clerk, immediately thought of me. I had turned down all the offers, preferring to ramble about as a newspaper correspondent, on a small salary, rather than settle down to a better-paid but uninteresting position. "Attaché," however, sounded impressive.
William E. Gonzales, the American Ambassador, was a quiet, gray-haired gentleman, whose dignity was tempered by a sense of humor and a fondness for golf. Mrs. Gonzales was one of those charming women whose tact as a hostess is coupled with a naturalness of manner which can make even a professed tramp feel at ease in the presence of the mighty. Immediately upon their arrival, they leased the finest residence in Lima, and discarded the old legation as unfit for an American Embassy.
I reported to the Ambassador's private secretary.
"So you're the new clerk?"
"Attaché," I corrected him.
He was a young Southerner of about my own age, but he had already seen diplomatic service in all the courts of Europe, and felt a trifle hurt that a self-boasted tropical tramp should enter the corps. Later, however, he proved the best of fellows.
The first task set before me did not appear to require much diplomatic training. The office was being moved from the old Legation to the new Embassy, and while he shipped the furniture from the old place, I was to go down to the new one to see that the moving men stole none of it en route.
"If any beggars come around, head them off," he advised me. "A new Ambassador is always pestered with a swarm of people asking contributions to schools and chowder parties and one thing or another."
I had barely taken charge of my new office when the bell began to ring. My dignity as an attaché was not supposed to be lowered by answering it, but there were no servants in the house yet, and after it had rung for half an hour, I opened the door.
Outside stood a priest. I had just seen several of them going from house to house collecting alms, and was rather annoyed at this disturbance in the machinery of international affairs.
"Here's twenty cents," I said. "It's all the small change I have."
Instead of taking it, he turned his back and walked away. I was pondering on his peculiar behavior when the telephone rang. Albes, the Ambassador's secretary, was calling me.
"Say, Foster, if the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps calls there, you-all can take him to the hotel where the Ambassador is stopping."
"All right."
"You know him, don't you? He's the Papal Nuncio. In any of these Catholic countries the Pope's Ambassador is the high muck-a-muck among the diplomats. You'll recognize him. He dresses like a priest."
I vowed that the next diplomat who called would not be offered twenty cents. When the doorbell rang again, I hastened to admit a tall, aristocratic-looking Peruvian in Prince Albert coat and walking stick.
"I regret most exceedingly that his Excellency the Ambassador of the United States of America, is not in the Embassy at present, but it will give me the greatest pleasure to escort you to his hotel," I said with a deep bow.
"Thank you, señor, you are most kind."
I hailed a passing taxicab. As we reached the hotel, I suddenly realized that in all my rambling around Peru, I had never had to make a formal introduction and glanced hastily in the back of my pocket dictionary among the "Useful Phrases" to find the formula. Evidently in my haste I looked at the wrong one, for I ushered the gentleman into the Ambassador's presence with the Spanish equivalent of:
"Sir, I have the honor to present you with this trifling birthday gift."
The aristocratic-looking gentleman seemed to be startled at this announcement, but the Ambassador bowed. I discovered for the first time that his own Spanish was somewhat limited, despite his Spanish name.
"Ask him what he wants," directed the Ambassador.
I did so. The gentleman fussed nervously with his cane.
"Why, the students of the University of San Marcos are giving an amateur bullfight next Sunday, and I came to see whether his Excellency would care to make some contribution toward the expenses."
But fortunately, as I said before, the Ambassador had a sense of humor.
I remained at the Embassy for two months, and found the duties no more arduous than my duties in the mining camp or upon the reportorial staff of The Leader. Diplomacy was not difficult in Peru. The Peruvian government, which considered the United States its particular friend, was most desirous of preserving American goodwill, and hastened to accede to any requests the Ambassador might make. If some port official in Callao unjustly imprisoned the cook on an American steamer for licking a native thief caught in the ship's galley, the quiet, gray-haired Ambassador wrote a letter to the President-a very polite, mild letter which merely stated the facts of the case and asked for an investigation-and immediately would come a reply from Señor Leguia, stating that the cook had been released and the port captain discharged from office. After the manner of Latin American dictators, President Leguia personally handled all the reins of government in Peru, and being an unusually capable and efficient and pro-American dictator, he handled the Ambassador's requests promptly.
During my travels, I had heard frequent complaints from my fellow countrymen about our consular and diplomatic service, frequently voiced in the remark: "Whenever I really need help of any kind, I pose as an Englishman and go to the British consul. Great Britain always protects her subjects." Personally, since I had always received the most courteous treatment from our consuls, this remark aroused my ire. Certainly it did not apply to the officials in Peru.
If Ambassador Gonzales erred at all, it was upon the side of helping Americans too readily. Once, when he was about to raise a row because Peruvian officialdom had been molesting an American saloon-keeper in Callao, he discovered just in time that the man had been running a disorderly resort where sailors were drugged, knocked on the head, and relieved of their money.
The Peruvians, on the whole, are such a mild-mannered race that few gringos got into trouble save through their own misconduct. Many cases came to our attention of losses through petty thievery or graft, but thievery or graft, while encountered in abundance throughout Latin America, are by no means limited to Latin America. When a foreigner suffered violence in Peru, it was generally at the hands of some fellow countryman and caused no international difficulty. Yet quarrels, even among the miners and railroad men who formed the greater part of the American population in Peru, were surprisingly infrequent. Many of the "roughnecks," while they seldom carried guns, had one packed away among their belongings, yet during my many months of knocking about the country, I heard of only one actual shooting affair.
In the Embassy I saw little of the tropical tramps, save when some old-timer from Morococha, in Lima for his two weeks' vacation, met me on the street and dragged me into a café to meet his cronies and talk over old times. Each tramp seemed to know every other tramp in Latin America, from Texas to Patagonia, and whenever two of them met by accident, they always exchanged gossip.
"I hear Red Patterson's comin' to Lima. I haven't seen Red since we beat it out of Iquique that night we cleaned up the police force. Bill McGovern was with us that night. Wonder where Bill is now?"
"Bill McGovern? I ain't seen him since he blew into the Madeira-Mamore office over in Brazil. He'd hiked across from Cochabamba, an' blew in with nothin' but his trowsers and shirt. The boss give 'im a job, but he held out for some ready cash. 'What d'ye want money for?' says the boss. 'I got to buy a hat,' says Bill. 'I'll give ye a hat,' says the boss. 'Well,' says bill, 'I got to buy a shirt.' 'I'll give you a shirt,' says the boss. 'Oh, hell,' says Bill, 'You know what I want. Give me the price of a drink.' Bill's a good scout. Red's runnin' around now with Mulvaney, I understand."
"Yeh. I ain't seen Mulvaney since the grasshopper plague in Costa Rica. We had a job together sprinklin' bug-juice on the railroad track. Grasshoppers was so thick the trains couldn't run. Ate so many bananas the fruit company near went out of business. You couldn't go out without getting' covered with 'em."
So the gossip continued.
For the most part in Lima I met men who were less interesting as characters, but usually more cultured as companions. The average American resident in Lima was a man of refinement and education, and if I give him less attention in my narrative than I give the "roughneck," it is because he appealed less to my sense of the unusual. During my two months in the Embassy I met but one man who could be termed unusual, and he was decidedly so. It was Dr. George Winthrop Lesser, M.A., F.R.G.S., and other degrees.
Dr. Lesser's introduction to the Embassy was typical of the man himself. It came in the form of a telegram, dispatched from some port up the coast, addressed to "His Excellency, the Ambassador of the United States of America," and marked "Strictly confidential."
It looked so important that Albes glanced up from his desk, vaguely wondering what tremendous new diplomatic problem was about to interrupt the peace and quiet of our office. He broke open the envelope, read the contents, and drawled in his South Carolina voice:
"You all just listen to this:
"Am suffering inconvenience and annoyance from arrest and detention here. Am American citizen of highest standing, friend of Bill Taft, colleague of Warren Harding, and boyhood chum of Charley Hughes. Am charged with non-payment of hotel bill. Kindly use your offices in my behalf. Dr. G.W. Lesser."
"Huh!" he concluded. "He sends it to us 'collect'."
We searched through a convenient volume of "Who's Who," but its compilers had somehow overlooked Dr. Lesser. The Ambassador was not greatly impressed either, yet since it was his policy to inquire fully into the case of every American in trouble, he directed us to write the President about it, and our letter to Señor Leguia brought the following response:
"This government has investigated the case of your esteemed compatriot, Dr. G.W. Lesser, and learns that the man sailed yesterday for Callao, having been released from prison upon his payment of the two dollars and fifteen cents due his hotel proprietor."
"Well," said Albes, "I reckon that'll be about all from Dr. Lesser.
But Albes was unduly optimistic. On the following morning a dilapidated hack stopped before the Embassy. Our building fronted squarely upon the sidewalk of Lima's principal thoroughfare, and through the open windows of the outer office a voice was plainly audible-a high-pitched nasal voice, raised in altercation with the cabman. The language was Spanish, but the voice was unmistakably Yankee.
"No, sir, you can't overcharge me just because I'm an American. I've been in Lima before. I know the proper charge."
Thereupon sounded a torrent of more fluent Castilian, evidently from the cochero, affirming that he was not overcharging his passenger, and threatening to call a policeman.
"Call him! Call him!" shrilled the nasal voice. "Do you think any policeman can arrest me? If you don't know who I am, just step into the Embassy and ask the Ambassador. Ask the First Secretary. Ask all the secretaries. Ask the servants. Here's fifty centavos. Good day."
Our doorbell sounded loudly and imperatively, and before anyone could answer it, in walked Dr. G.W. Lesser. He proved to be a man of some forty years of age, tall and angular, with a lean face topped by graying hair. From under a pair of immense shell-rimmed glasses his nose protruded aggressively, as though ready to poke itself into anybody's private office, but his retreating chin and nervous mouth suggested that this same aggressive organ would be hastily withdrawn if it encountered very serious opposition.
Albes and myself surveyed him critically. The man's clothes marked him as an old-timer in the tropics, but they did not indicate the affluence which might be expected of one who boasted such a distinguished clientele of friends. The suit was of Palm Beach cloth, worn threadbare, and the hat, now wrinkled beyond classification, had probably at some remote time been describable as a Panama. Lesser's greatest pretense at dignity consisted in a heavy cane of bull's horn.
"I'm Dr. Lesser," he announced impressively. "Dr. George Winthrop Lesser. You received my telegram, no doubt?"
"No doubt," said Albes, unimpressed. "You owe us three pounds and sixty centavos charges on it."
Dr. Lesser seemed to regard this detail as irrelevant.
"It was a most aggravating affair," he said. "One of those hotel-keeping robbers wanted to take advantage of me because I was an American. I didn't mind the price, of course; it was the principle of the thing. Because I am an American, I will not be victimized. Is the Ambassador in his office?"
He casually placed his hat and cane upon a desk.
"Yes," drawled Albes, "but if that's all you want to see him about, you-all can talk to me about it."
Dr. Lesser's face darkened with annoyance at this effrontery of a mere secretary. We both felt that he was making a mental note of Albes' conduct to be used in his next letter to friends in Washington.
"I wish to speak to the Ambassador about questions of international importance. If you would like to see my credentials..."
Reaching into an inner pocket, he suddenly displayed a sheaf of testimonials, signed by everybody from General Pershing to Elihu Root. And as we stared at him in amazement, he turned back the lapel of his coat, disclosing a badge. It did look suspiciously like the tin medals awarded by correspondence schools with the sixteenth lesson on finger printing, but after seeing those testimonials, we dared not question its authority.
"I suppose you both know what that means," said Lesser.
Neither of us did, yet we both nodded mechanically. We felt that we ought to have known.
"I guess the head of the Latin American section of the U.S. Secret Service is entitled to see the Ambassador, isn't he?" Lesser concluded, and before we could stop him, he had marched past us into Mr. Gonzales' private office.
After several minutes he emerged again, and draped himself across Albes' desk with the evident intention of favoring us with more conversation.
"Decent sort of chap, the Ambassador," he began. "Tickled to death to see me."
"Here's your hat," said Albes, pointedly.
Dr. Lesser accepted the battered relic.
"Interesting hat," he remarked. "This is the hat I wore when I was consul at Vera Cruz. You remember the occasion when our marines invaded Vera Cruz because the Mexicans wouldn't salute our flag?"
Albes nodded, bored.
"I was the man who demanded that salute." He accepted the cane which Albes now proffered him. "This stick also has a history. It's made from the horns of the bulls killed in the ring at Mexico City."
Albes glared at him.
"Did you kill them yourself?" he inquired.
Dr. Lesser nodded.
"But, of course, that was years ago when I was a young fellow like yourself-before I made my mark. I couldn't do it now. Dignity and all that. How Bill Taft would chuckle if he knew I had been a matador!"
"I'll bet he would," said Albes.
"Well," said Dr. Lesser, evidently displeased with our lack of enthusiasm, "I must be going."
"Three pounds and sixty centavos," reminded Albes.
Dr. Lesser frowned with annoyance.
"Oh, yes, yes, I meant to speak about that. I wanted to ask you to keep that on your books for a few days. Until I can reach my alligator farm in Venezuela, or my silver mines in Chile, I'll be a trifle hard-pressed. I neglected them during the war, you know-I was a dollar a year man in Washington, and I've been financially embarrassed ever since. But I'll get that money for you, as soon as I begin to draw my pay from the Peruvian Intelligence office. The Ambassador is recommending me for a very important position. Of course, I'll be pretending to work for Peru, but all the time I'll be getting dope for our own government."
To our surprise, the Ambassador did send us out a letter, introducing Lesser to President Leguia. It did not recommend him for the important position of which he had spoken, but it did state that he was competent to transcribe Spanish into English, and that he wished employment with the Peruvian government.
Lesser, however, when I ran into him a few hours later at a restaurant, informed me that this was only a "blind," and that he was now second in importance to Leguia himself.
"No one suspects it," he explained. "Everything is secret. I just occupy an unimportant-looking desk in the government office. When Leguia wants me, he just presses a button. No bell rings-nothing crude like that-but the pen-wiper on my desk flaps up and down. I go through the underground passage to his chamber, open the sliding panel in the wall-"
He continued at great length, giving me the most astounding account of the secrecy attendant upon his visits to the presidential chamber. Then he swore me to silence. It was not long, however, before I discovered that he had told the same story, with variations, to every other American in Lima, swearing each to silence as he had sworn me. Secrecy was not Lesser's strong suite. At the café where I took lunch with several young vice-consuls, Lesser took the seat of honor at our table, officially christened it the "American table," replaced our modest bouquet with a silk flag, and complained loudly because the orchestra did not play "Yankee Doodle."
When Albes and I reported the man's behavior to the Ambassador, Mr. Gonzales was greatly surprised. Lesser, he said, had come to him quietly to ask for the letter of introduction. If Lesser had shown us letters from General Pershing and Elihu Root, they were probably forged. I was commissioned to go out and gather further information about the man.
From my experience on The Leader, I had learned that the best news source in Lima was the American Bar. To this establishment came all the miners on vacation from Cerro de Pasco, and all the travelers who stopped in Lima. If a man had ever spent much time anywhere on the West Coast, there was sure to be someone in this place who knew his record.
"Does anybody here know anything about Dr. Lesser?" I asked.
Morris, the proprietor, made it a point never to discuss personalities, but his gesture was expressive. He placed his thumbs behind his head and wiggled his fingers with a circular motion.
"Ask Red Patterson," he suggested.
But Red, who had now reached Lima, and was still celebrating his inheritance in company with Mulvaney, was not in a condition to discuss any question seriously.
"You mean George Washington Lesser, D.S.C., and X.Y.Z., and C.O.C.?" he chuckled, swaying slightly and grasping the bar rail for support. "Sure, 'e's the fellow what wrote the Declaration of Independence, composed the Lord's Prayer, an' invented the victrola. 'E's a great man."
Other contributions of opinion, however, were more helpful.
"We all know him," said Glen, the tall Canadian cashier form the Smelter. "He's the fellow that makes up all sorts of fancy degrees and prints them behind his name. He worked under me at the Smelter ten years ago, and he was such a nuisance, I kicked him out. He's the biggest liar in Peru, with the possible exception of present company."
"Thanks," said Red Patterson gratefully.
"He worked under me at the oil fields," spoke up another acquaintance of my newspaper days. "When we fired him, we found his desk full of maps and plans of the works. The real Secret Service got after him, thinking he was a German spy, but they decided he was only a lunatic. He thinks he's a detective. Biggest lunatic on the West Coast."
"'E's a great man," protested Red, still swaying against the bar. "When 'e drinks a toast to William Jennings Bryan, 'e's got sense enough to let me pay for the drink. 'E's no lunatic."
"But how does he live?" I demanded.
"Oh, he gets jobs now and then. When he gets fired, he beats it out of town and leaves the rest of the American colony to pay his bills."
"'E's a great man," Red maintained, a broad grin on his freckled face. "'E and Betsy Ross made the first flag. 'E's the only man Mary Pickford ever really loved."
When the Ambassador heard my report, he wrote a second note to President Leguia, explaining the man's character, and apologizing for his haste in sending such a man to the Peruvian government.
Two days later Dr. Lesser bade us farewell at the American table.
"Been fired?" asked Albes, heartlessly.
"Fired? No indeed! When I told Leguia I was going, he went down on his knees to me. He begged me to stay. 'George,' he said, 'we need you here. We simply can't get along without you.' But I have my own interests to attend to-my alligator farm in Venezuela and my silver mines in Chile. After all, I must consider myself."
Later he drew me aside.
"Can you lend me three pounds until I'm on my feet again?"
I knew I would never see the money, but as story material, I thought he was worth it.
We did not hear from him again for several weeks. Then a prospector in Morris' Bar brought news that he had last seen Lesser on a mule, headed in the general direction of Bolivia. He was claiming relationship to Thomas A. Edison and Henry Ford, and had been commissioned by the national Geographic Society--so he said--to measure the altitudes of all the mountain peaks in the Andes.