shall have to go.”
Owen was an American, Kate was Irish. “Never having seen one” meant “having to go.” But it was American logic rather than Irish, and Kate only let herself be overcome.
Villiers of course was keen. But then he too was American, and he too had never seen one, and being younger, more than anybody he had to go.
They got into a Ford taxi and went. The busted car careered away down the wide dismal street of asphalt and stone and Sunday dreariness. Stone buildings in Mexico have a peculiar hard, dry dreariness.
The taxi drew up in a side street under the big iron scaffolding of the stadium. In the gutters, rather lousy men were selling pulque and sweets, cakes, fruit, and greasy food. Crazy motor-cars rushed up and hobbled away. Little soldiers in washed-out cotton uniforms, pinky drab, hung around an entrance. Above all loomed the network iron frame of the huge, ugly stadium.
Kate felt she was going to prison. But Owen excitedly surged to the entrance that corresponded to his ticket. In the depths of him, he too didn’t want to go. But he was a born American, and if anything was on show, he had to see it. That was “Life.”
The man who took the tickets at the entrance, suddenly, as they were passing in, stood in front of Owen, put both his hands on Owen’s chest and pawed down the front of Owen’s body. Owen started, bridled, transfixed for a moment. The fellow stood aside. Kate remained petrified.
Then Owen jerked into a smiling composure as the man waved them on. “Feeling for fire-arms!” he said, rolling his eyes with