"Since it is well known that you wear skirts.
Even the soldiers.
I have seen photographs and also I have seen them in the Circus of Price.
What do you wear under your skirts, _Ingles?_"
"_Los cojones_," Robert Jordan said.
Anselmo laughed and so did the others who were listening; all except Fernando.
The sound of the word, of the gross word spoken before the women, was offensive to him.
"Well, that is normal," Pablo said.
"But it seems to me that with enough _cojones_ you would not wear skirts."
"Don't let him get started again, _Ingles_," the flat-faced man with the broken nose who was called Primitivo said.
"He is drunk.
Tell me, what do they raise in your country?"
"Cattle and sheep," Robert Jordan said.
"Much grain also and beans.
And also much beets for sugar."
The three were at the table now and the others sat close by except Pablo, who sat by himself in front of a bowl of the wine.
It was the same stew as the night before and Robert Jordan ate it hungrily.
"In your country there are mountains?
With that name surely there are mountains," Primitivo asked politely to make conversation.
He was embarrassed at the drunkenness of Pablo.
"Many mountains and very high."
"And are there good pastures?"
"Excellent; high pasture in the summer in forests controlled by the government.
Then in the fall the cattle are brought down to the lower ranges."
"Is the land there owned by the peasants?"
"Most land is owned by those who farm it.
Originally the land was owned by the state and by living on it and declaring the intent~on of improving it, a man could obtain a title to a hundred and fifty hectares."
"Tell me how this is done," Agustin asked.
"That is an agrarian reform which means something."
Robert Jordan explained the process of homesteading.
He had never thought of it before as an agrarian reform.
"That is magnificent," Primitivo said.
"Then you have a communism in your country?"
"No.
That is done under the Republic."
"For me," Agustin said, "everything can be done under the Republic.
I see no need for other form of government."
"Do you have no big proprietors?" Andres asked.
"Many."
"Then there must be abuses."
"Certainly.
There are many abuses."
"But you will do away with them?"
"We try to more and more.
But there are many abuses still."
"But there are not great estates that must be broken up?"
"Yes.
But there are those who believe that taxes will break them up."
"How?"
Robert Jordan, wiping out the stew bowl with bread, explained how the income tax and inheritance tax worked.