A great many years ago there lived a certain fool that went by the name of Juan Loco. He was the son of a butcher, in so far as the following experiences of his are concerned; he had many other experiences that are not recorded in this story.
Juan could not be intrusted with anything, he was such a dunce; but one day he persuaded his father to let him go out and sell meat. So about eight in the morning Juan left home with about three pesos’ worth of pork, full of many a hopeful expectation. After having wandered through many streets, he noticed that a big horse-fly was following him with an imploring murmur. Imagining that the fly wanted to buy meat, this sapient vender said to it, “Do you want to buy meat?” The fly answered with a “buzzzzz.” For Juan this was a sufficient answer: so he left one-third of the pork with the fly, saying that he was coming back again for his pay. Next he met a hungry and greatly-abused pig, and he asked it if it wanted to buy meat. The pig merely said, “hack, hack,” and gave a few angry nods, but Juan understood it to be saying, “Yes:” so he threw it one-half of the meat he had left, with the same warning as he gave the fly,—that he was coming back to collect the price of the meat. His third customer was himself, or his reflection. Warm, tired, and thirsty from his wanderings, he came to a well, where he thought he would take a drink. On looking down, however, he saw a man in the bottom of the well. When Juan shouted to him and made gestures, the man—or his reflection and the echo of his own voice—returned some sort of inarticulate sound, and made the same gestures as Juan. For the third time this sufficed for a “Yes.” So Juan threw the rest of his pork down the well, and said he would come back for his money.
Now comes the collection, which he found to be quite easy. He entered a dry-goods store, where he saw a fly on the hand of the shop-keeper. Juan talked to the fly and demanded his money. It did not answer: so he began chasing it around the room, sometimes striking at it when it was on some customer’s hand. At last, tired of the disturbance, the shop-keeper paid him off to get rid of him. Next Juan came to a garden where there was a pig. With the pig he encountered the same obstinate silence. He began to chase the pig, and he beat it whenever he was near enough to hit it. When the owner of the animal saw what he was doing, and realized that he was crazy, he paid him off, too. Now, as to his third customer. The reflection in the pool simply mocked him and made him disgusted. So Juan got a long pole and stirred the bottom of the well. When he found that this treatment simply made his customer disappear, he began shouting at the top of his voice. Finally the owner of the well came; and, to avoid further disturbance, he also paid him off, for every one could easily see that the vender was crazy (loco) from the way he talked and acted.
So Juan went home in ecstasy. He received much praise from his father, who promised to let him sell meat every day; and the poor fellow gloried in being thus praised.
