Give him a
chance and he will count every log twice (most likely he has already
plastered mud over the marks which show the rotten patch in the wood,
and is wondering whether he has cleared the black sufficiently off a
piece of "campana" to persuade a reasonable man that it is really fresh
wood).
It is part of the inspector's stock in trade to know these and a myriad
other tricks, too numerous to take separately.
The typical axeman in the Santa Fe Chaco is more genuinely "childlike"
than, and quite as "bland" as, the famous Celestial. He never quite
grows up; he will spend his last dollar on a mouth-organ when he is
forty, and give a wild war-whoop of delight as a stack of newly piled
sleepers falls crashing to the ground.
He loves sweets and the bright clothes which he wears with childish
dignity on feast-days and holidays.
His _amour propre_ is tremendous, and influences his code of honour to a
great extent. The first ten commandments he will break most cheerfully,
but the eleventh--"Thou shalt not be found out"--he respects to the best
of his power.
Stealing, for instance, he regards as a pastime, but call him a thief
and you must be prepared for trouble. A perfect instance of this can be
quoted in the case of an estanciero who found a peon wearing one of his
shirts.
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