aw little of him after that. I was busy establishing new
barrio-schools, which were to give me excuses for long horseback rides
of inspection. I felt his presence down there in that vague way by which
you are aware of a person behind your back without turning around.
Rumors of his doings reached me. He was having a horrible time. On the
night of his arrival he had been invited to dinner by the Presidente, a
kind old primitive soul, but when he found that he was expected to sit
at the table with the family, he had stamped off, indignant, saying that
he didn't eat with no niggers. As I've said before, the town was
hostile, and this attitude did not help matters much. He couldn't get
the school moneys out of the Tesorero--an unmitigated rascal--but that
did not make much difference, for he had no pupils anyhow. He couldn't
speak a word of Spanish; no one in the town, of course, knew any
English--he must have been horribly lonely. He began to wear _camisas_,
like the natives. That's always a bad sign. It shows that the man has
discovered that there is no one to care how he dresses--that is, that
there is no longer any public opinion. It indicates something subtly
worse--that the man has ceased looking at himself, that the _I_ has
ceased criticising, judging, stiffening up the _me_,--in other words,
that there is no longer any conscience. That white suit, I tell you, is
a wonderful moral force; the white suit, put on fresh every morning,
heavily starched, buttoned up to the chin, is like an armor,
ironcladding you against the germ of decay buzzing about you,
ceaselessly vigilant for the little vulnerable spot. Miller wore
_camisas_, and then he began to go without shoes. I saw that myself. I
was riding through his pueblo on my way to Dent's, and I passed his
school. I looked into the open door as my head bobbed by at the height
of the stilt-raised floor. He was in his _camisa_ and barefooted; his
long neck stretched out of the collarless garment with a mournful,
stork-like expression. Squatting on the floor were three trouserless,
dirt-incrusted boys; he was pointing at a chart standing before their
eyes, and all together they were shouting some word that exploded away
down in their throats in tremendous effort and never seemed to reach
their lips. I called out and waved my hand as I went by, and when I
looked back, a hundred yards farther, I saw that he had come out upon
the bamboo platform outside of the door, gaping after m