at a girl!" exclaimed one of the students, starting
forward. "Tell the professor that I'm seriously ill." So Tadeo,
as this invalid youth was known, entered the church to follow the girl.

Tadeo went to the University every day to ask if the classes would be
held and each time seemed to be more and more astonished that they
would. He had a fixed idea of a latent and eternal _holiday_, and
expected it to come any day. So each morning, after vainly proposing
that they play truant, he would go away alleging important business,
an appointment, or illness, just at the very moment when his companions
were going to their classes. But by some occult, thaumaturgic art
Tadeo passed the examinations, was beloved by the professors, and
had before him a promising future.

Meanwhile, the groups began to move inside, for the professor
of physics and chemistry had put in his appearance. The students
appeared to be cheated in their hopes and went toward the interior
of the building with exclamations of discontent. Placido went along
with the crowd.

"Penitente, Penitente!" called a student with a certain mysterious
air. "Sign this!"

"What is it?"

"Never mind--sign it!"

It seemed to Placido that some one was twitching his ears. He recalled
the story of a cabeza de barangay in his town who, for having signed
a document that he did not understand, was kept a prisoner for months
and months, and came near to deportation. An uncle of Placido's,
in order to fix the lesson in his memory, had given him a severe
ear-pulling, so that always whenever he heard signatures spoken of,
his ears reproduced the sensation.

"Excuse me, but I can't sign anything without first understanding
what it's about."

"What a fool you are! If two _celestial carbineers_ have signed it,
what have you to fear?"

The name of _celestial carbineers_ inspired confidence, being, as it
was, a sacred company created to aid God in the warfare against the
evil spirit and to prevent the smuggling of heretical contraband into
the markets of the New Zion. [27]

Placido was about to sign to make an end of it, because he was in
a hurry,--already his classmates were reciting the _O Thoma_,--but
again his ears twitched, so he said, "After the class! I want to read
it first."

"It's very long, don't you see? It concerns the presentation of a
counter-petition, or rather, a protest. Don't you understand? Makaraig
and some others have asked that an academy of Castilian b