T. S. Stribling

“ The American-Spaniard's idea of romance is marriage and mistresses. It is somewhat akin to the Peruvian shop-keeper's idea of business, where he has three or four prices on every article in his tienda.
Spanish-America's slogan seems to be, Caveat emptor et mulier.
The whole ensemble lacks a certain high cold wind that blows through the Anglo-Saxon idea of romance.
In time Lassiter learned these things, and the bars of his prison slowly enfolded him again. The West Coast of South America became an extension of the Stendill offices in Maiden Lane. ”

“ The unattached male is at once a criticism upon their collective charms and a slacker. Once a typist snapped out in Lassiter's presence something about “the big stiff spells 'soul' with a dollar mark.”
She would have been surprized, and no doubt further irritated, had she known that when the women employés of Stendill filed out into Maiden Lane at four o'clock, Lassiter always leaned out of the window and watched their tiny figures lose themselves in the roaring traffic. ”

“ The Latin-American is not a man of action in the American sense. He is deliberate, but highly observing; he is indolent, but full of chicane. He is an extremely difficult man to beguile. Lassiter knew if he launched any sort of expedition into the interior of South America from any point along the coast, half a dozen men in his employ would be agents of the Argentine-Chile railroad.
That formed his problem. The Stendill agent required no ordinary deception. ”

“ A woman fairer than he had ever seen, a bit nebulous, if the truth be told. In the visioning of every bachelor gleams the rondures of a woman real or feigned, just as in the memory of a benedict glows the dalliance of unmarried days. ”

“ He needed something enigmatic, impenetrable, absolute—there he stuck.
Life has a surprizing way of presenting to the seeker exactly what he is looking for. It seems almost as if mind fashioned matter in its own image as Berkely claims it does. To wish is to possess. ”

“ The South American agent shook hands, gave his own name, then asked a little uncertainly—
“Do you mean you live in a town named Birdsong?”
“That's right—Birdsong, Yell County, Arkansas. Named after my daddy. He moved us out there from Blue Ridge, Tennessee, Sequatchie County when I was just a shaver. He staked off a claim to a hundred and sixty acres of fine bottom land and jest naturally squatted on six hundred more. When they come and tried to put him off, glory to God, they'd waited too long and it belonged to the old man.” ”

“ In this burst of development, there arose in the Stendill offices a strong demand for Spanish-speaking men to be used in the South American service. Notwithstanding the fact that Lassiter lacked what may be called the belligerency of the usual successful American business man, nevertheless he was tried out, first as traveling auditor, later as traveling business representative of the Stendill lines on the South American West Coast. ”

“ This, of course, is no new truth. It was promulgated two thousand years ago by a certain wise man, whose teachings, un fortunately, have fallen in disrepute with the human race. This seer expressed it—
“Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall.be opened unto you.”
THE manner in which Charles Lassiter came to know Ezekiel Birdsong is a case in point.
In New York the South American agent had few acquaintances, because he was in that city only once or twice a year, and in New York an acquaintanceship seldom persists for more than from ten minutes to fourteen or fifteen days. ”

“ Not to dally over threadbare material—when Morrow took control of the Stendill fleet, those steamers were sailing back from South America in ballast, or at best, half laden. Morrow developed the idea of owning industries to freight his own bottoms. Today the Stendill tri-color floats over copper mines in Bolivia, ivorynut plantations in Peru, cacao forests in Ecuador, rubber camps in Brazil, coffee plantations around Sao Paulo and packing houses in Buenos Aires. ”