8 | P.M.
A word from my sofa, where I am resting in my purple Paris draperies. We have had a long line of visitors. Ayguesparsse was the first, and so nice and sympathetic. With his Mexican wife he does not find himself in an easy position. His family-in-law has made many and real sacrifices for La Patria and the Huerta government. Three men, expert machinists, are having their dinners down-stairs, having set up the Gatling-guns under Burnside’s instructions. I have provided pulque, tortillas, frijoles, and cigarettes for countless gendarmes. We are ten at dinner, and perhaps twenty have been in for tea. There has been an anti-American demonstration at Porter’s Hotel, where the very clever woman journalist I mentioned before is staying. She will sleep here to-night, in Ryan’s room. The landlady of Porter’s is also coming, and they will have to take friendly turns in a single bed. About twenty extra persons are sleeping here. We hear nothing from Washington direct. Algara, the Mexican chargé, has been recalled. N. saw Huerta this afternoon, who begged him not to go. We can no longer cable, though the other legations can send what they like to Washington via their various European chanceries. No trains are going out to-night nor this morning. Three of the many Pullmans, loaded with men, women, and children, which started yesterday for Vera Cruz, have not yet arrived there. We understand there was fighting along the road.
Rowan is being more than nice, but I think he is rather longing for the baptism of fire that might be his, were he in Vera Cruz.
After dinner McKenna came to tell us that there were three car-loads of women and children outside the Embassy gate. They had to come in, of course, and be attended to.
Nelson saw Huerta to-day at his house. The President said to him, very brusquely: “You have seized our port. You have the right to take it, if you can, and we have the right to try to prevent you. Su Excelencia el Señor Presidente Wilson has declared war, unnecessarily, on a people that only ask to be left alone, to follow out their own evolution in their own way, though it may not seem to you a good way.” He added that he would have been willing to give the salutes, but that the incident was only a pretext. In three weeks or three months, he said, it would have been something else; that we were “after him,” or the Spanish to that effect.
I think his real idea is to form the Mexicans into one camp against the foreign foe. He does not want Nelson to go, in spite of the fact that Algara has been recalled. We have no intimation, as yet, of our leaving. Mr. Bryan has stated that he instructed Mr. O’Shaughnessy to see Huerta and ask him to keep the roads open to facilitate the getting out of refugees. We are asking favors to the end. N. had not seen the President for several days and did not know in what disposition he would find him. But Huerta took his hand and greeted him, saying, “Como está, amigo?” (“How are you, friend?”). He might have been going to play some Indian trick on him. I begged Rowan to go with N., and he waited in the automobile while N. had the interview.