ning again
to Basilio.

"Why, aren't you familiar with it?"

"How the devil am I to know it when I've never set foot in it? I've
been told that it's very poor and doesn't buy jewels."

"We don't buy jewels, because we don't need them," rejoined Isagani
dryly, piqued in his provincial pride.

A smile played over Simoun's pallid lips. "Don't be offended, young
man," he replied. "I had no bad intentions, but as I've been assured
that nearly all the money is in the hands of the native priests, I
said to myself: the friars are dying for curacies and the Franciscans
are satisfied with the poorest, so when they give them up to the
native priests the truth must be that the king's profile is unknown
there. But enough of that! Come and have a beer with me and we'll
drink to the prosperity of your province."

The youths thanked him, but declined the offer.

"You do wrong," Simoun said to them, visibly taken aback. "Beer is a
good thing, and I heard Padre Camorra say this morning that the lack
of energy noticeable in this country is due to the great amount of
water the inhabitants drink."

Isagani was almost as tall as the jeweler, and at this he drew
himself up.

"Then tell Padre Camorra," Basilio hastened to say, while he nudged
Isagani slyly, "tell him that if he would drink water instead of wine
or beer, perhaps we might all be the gainers and he would not give
rise to so much talk."

"And tell him, also," added Isagani, paying no attention to his
friend's nudges, "that water is very mild and can be drunk, but that
it drowns out the wine and beer and puts out the fire, that heated
it becomes steam, and that ruffled it is the ocean, that it once
destroyed mankind and made the earth tremble to its foundations!" [8]

Simoun raised his head. Although his looks could not be read
through the blue goggles, on the rest of his face surprise might
be seen. "Rather a good answer," he said. "But I fear that he might
get facetious and ask me when the water will be converted into steam
and when into an ocean. Padre Camorra is rather incredulous and is
a great wag."

"When the fire heats it, when the rivulets that are now scattered
through the steep valleys, forced by fatality, rush together in the
abyss that men are digging," replied Isagani.

"No, Senor Simoun," interposed Basilio, changing to a jesting tone,
"rather keep in mind the verses of my friend Isagani himself:

'Fire you, you say, and water we,
Then as