CHAPTER XII

NORTHWARD TO ANTOFAGASTA BY RAIL. COPIAPÓ, ANTOFAGASTA, AND IQUIQUE

I remained a couple of months in Santiago after returning from Chillán which I put in profitably by making excursions and foot tours to the nearby mountain canyons, visiting the small towns in the neighborhood and studying the business possibilities of the future as applied to the Chilean capital.

One night as I sat having my shoes shined in a bootblack stand underneath the Portal Fernans on the south side of the Plaza de Armas, I noticed passing by an Englishman named Greenberg, an old acquaintance whom I last saw in Arequipa, Peru, in 1913. Greenberg was a salesman for the Browning Arms Company, originally hailing from Liverpool but had been quite a few years on the West Coast. In Arequipa we were introduced to a wealthy family named Larramendi and were frequent guests at their house. They had three charming daughters. One night while Greenberg and I were calling on the Larramendi girls, I overheard him proposing marriage to the oldest one, Felipa. I was considerably annoyed at this because Greenberg had already a wife and children in the old country. I upbraided him for his actions but was surprised when he answered me that he was sincere in his proposal and that since he and his wife did not get along very well together, he intended marrying Felipa and settling down in Arequipa. I knew that sooner or later he would be found out and as I did not care to be a witness of such an act towards a family that had shown me so much consideration, I quietly left Arequipa saying nothing to Greenberg about my departure.

Now after an elapse of three years without having heard anything about the outcome, curiosity got the best of me so I hailed Greenberg. I invited him to a quiet café and heard his story.

Greenberg married Felipa and shortly after the marriage, old Larramendi sent him with his bride to live on an upland estancia about fifty miles east of Arequipa in the high Andes, which estancia Greenberg became the manager of. He had lived there for two years rarely coming to Arequipa and had become the father of a child by this new union. He made considerable money for his father-in-law, who in turn gave him no salary nor wages, and this latter fact coupled with the life of ennui that he was leading caused him to have a talk with the old man about his future. He demanded a salary but this Larramendi refused to give him saying that he himself was an old man and would not live for more than fifteen years more, and that when he died Greenberg would inherit the bulk of his fortune on account of his business ability, so what more could he ask for?

Greenberg than told Larramendi that if a change did not immediately forthcome, he would quit the managership of the estancia and would leave there with his wife to resume his old calling of salesman which paid him well.

"If you do," said Larramendi, "I shall have you arrested for bigamy."

"What is that you said?" yelled Greenberg, scarcely believing his own ears.

Larramendi then went on and told him that he had carefully looked him up before inviting him to his house and had found out that he was married and had a wife and children in Liverpool whose address he had. He said that he did not care a rap for that part of the business for he wanted to see his daughters married to Anglo-Saxon stock. "It will improve the race," he said, "especially that of my own immediate family." He told Greenberg that for this reason and also for the fact that he knew him to be a good business man he had urged the marriage and was willing to keep his mouth shut provided Greenberg would keep on living as he had the past two years, but that if he attempted to run away he would have him arrested for bigamy. Greenberg returned home to the bleak mountain estancia and confessed the whole thing to Felipa. She stood by him and both thought out a scheme to get away. A year afterwards their plan matured when Larramendi was on a business trip to Lima. They went to Bolivia and thence to Chile where Greenberg obtained a position as manager of a mercantile house in Valparaiso. Fortunately for him, his first wife not having heard from him in over three years had divorced him on grounds of desertion and had married another man. Greenberg communicated this news by letter to Larramendi who was now inducing him by offers of a most lucrative salary to return to Arequipa. This Greenberg had so far refused to consider because he did not know what new trick Larramendi had in store for him.

"You were lucky, Stephens," he said, "to have left Arequipa when you