Part 72

"If mitres had eyes, and could see on what craniums----"

We spare our readers other comments of this nature. Let us enter the home of a private citizen, and as we know few people at Manila, we will knock at the door of Captain Tinong, the friendly and hospitable gentleman whom we saw inviting Ibarra, with so much insistence, to honor his house with a visit.

In his rich and spacious drawing-room, at Tondo, Captain Tinong is seated in a great arm-chair, passing his hand despairingly across his brow; while his weeping wife, the Capitana Tinchang, reads him a sermon, listened to by their two daughters, who are seated in a corner, mute with stupefaction.

"Ah, Virgin of Antipolo!" cried the wife. "Ah, Virgin of the Rosary; I told you so! I told you so! Ah, Virgin of Carmel! Ah!"

"Why, no! You didn't tell me anything," Captain Tinong finally ventured to reply. "On the contrary, you said I did well to keep up the friendship with Captain Tiago, and to go to his house, because--because he was rich; and you said----"

"What did I say? I didn't say it! I didn't say anything! Ah, if you had listened to me!"

"Now you throw the blame back on me!" said the captain bitterly, striking the arm of his chair with his fist. "Didn't you say I did well to invite him to dinner, because, as he was rich----"

"It is true I said that, because--because it couldn't be helped; you had already invited him; and you did nothing but praise him. Don Ibarra here, and Don Ibarra there, and Don Ibarra on all sides. But I didn't advise you to see him or to speak to him at the dinner. That you cannot deny!"

"Did I know, for instance, that he was to be there?"

"You ought to have known it!"

"How, if I wasn't even acquainted with him?"

"You ought to have been acquainted with him!"

"But, Tinchang, if it was the first time I had ever seen him or heard him spoken of?"

"You ought to have seen him before, you ought to have heard him spoken of; that's what you are a man for! And now, you will be sent into exile, our goods will be confiscated----Oh, if I were a man! if I were a man!"

"And if you were a man," asked the vexed husband, "what would you do?"

"What? Why, to-day, this very day, I should present myself to the captain-general, and offer to fight against the rebels, this very day!"

"But didn't you read what the Diario says? Listen! 'The infamous and abortive treason has been repressed with energy, force, and vigor, and the rebellious enemies of the country and their accomplices will promptly feel all the weight and all the severity of the laws!' You see, there is no rebellion!"

"That makes no difference, you should present yourself; many did it in 1872, and so nobody harmed them."

"Yes! it was done also by Father Bug----" But his wife's hands were over his mouth.

"Say it! Speak that name, so you may be hung to-morrow at Bagumbayan! Don't you know it is enough to get you executed without so much as a trial? Go on, say it!"

But though Captain Tinong had wished, he couldn't have done it. His wife held his mouth with both her hands, squeezing his little head against the back of the chair. Perhaps the poor man would have died of asphyxia, had not a new person come on the stage.

It was their cousin, Don Primitivo, who knew Amat by heart; a man of forty, large and corpulent, and dressed with the utmost care.

"Quid video?" he cried, upon entering; "what is going on?"

"Ah, cousin!" said the wife, weeping, and running to him, "I had you sent for, for I don't know what will become of us! What do you advise--you who have studied Latin and understand reasoning----"

"But quid quæritis? Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu." And he sat down sedately. The Latin phrases seemed to have a tranquillizing effect; the husband and wife ceased to lament, and came nearer, awaiting the counsel of their cousin's lips, as once the Greeks awaited the saving phrase of the oracle.

"Why are you mourning? Ubinam gentium sumus?"

"You know the story of the uprising----"

"Well, what of it? Don Crisóstomo owes you?"