March 2d
Your letter of the 5th, sent after the raising of the embargo, is received. I can well understand your worrying about our remaining in Mexico. We worried for a few minutes, but by now you will have received my letter telling all about it. It will take something gigantic, something outside of Huerta, to cause him to give Nelson his passports, no matter how often fiery, enraged Cabinet Ministers may urge it.
Last night, on returning home, we found that Huerta had sent us six more soldiers with a sergeant. It made me feel as if the house were the setting for an act from some opéra bouffe. We gave the soldiers packages of cigarettes and a drink apiece, and I suppose they rested on the sofas or floors of the parterre. N. never leaves the house without his secret-service man, a decent fellow, but dressed to the rôle in a loud, tight, bright-blue suit with white stripes, and pistols—the last articles outlined against his person every time he makes a motion. We have a beautiful new motor—low, smooth-running, painted black, with a smart dark-gray band about it. He occupies the seat beside Jesus, gets out when N. gets out, and waits around ostentatiously while N. attends to whatever he has on hand. He is an awful bore, and quite unnecessary, but Huerta answered, when N. protested, “Es mejor” (“It is better so”).