in their hands, took their place under the sign _domestiques_!

"Those are the domestics," explained Juanito.

"Really, they have the appearance of being only recently domesticated,"
observed Dona Victorina. "Now let's have a look at the savages."

Then the dozen girls headed by the lively and merry Serpolette, decked
out in their best clothes, each wearing a big bouquet of flowers at
the waist, laughing, smiling, fresh and attractive, placed themselves,
to Juanito's great desperation, beside the post of the _servantes_.

"How's this?" asked Paulita guilelessly. "Are those the savages that
you spoke of?"

"No," replied the imperturbable Juanito, "there's a mistake--they've
got their places mixed--those coming behind--"

"Those with the whips?"

Juanito nodded assent, but he was rather perplexed and uneasy.

"So those girls are the _cochers_?"

Here Juanito was attacked by such a violent fit of coughing that some
of the spectators became annoyed.

"Put him out! Put the consumptive out!" called a voice.

Consumptive! To be called a consumptive before Paulita! Juanito
wanted to find the blackguard and make him swallow that
"consumptive." Observing that the women were trying to hold him back,
his bravado increased, and he became more conspicuously ferocious. But
fortunately it was Don Custodio who had made the diagnosis, and he,
fearful of attracting attention to himself, pretended to hear nothing,
apparently busy with his criticism of the play.

"If it weren't that I am with you," remarked Juanito, rolling his
eyes like some dolls that are moved by clockwork, and to make the
resemblance more real he stuck out his tongue occasionally.

Thus that night he acquired in Dona Victorina's eyes the reputation
of being brave and punctilious, so she decided in her heart that
she would marry him just as soon as Don Tiburcio was out of the
way. Paulita became sadder and sadder in thinking about how the girls
called _cochers_ could occupy Isagani's attention, for the name had
certain disagreeable associations that came from the slang of her
convent school-days.

At length the first act was concluded, the marquis taking away as
servants Serpolette and Germaine, the representative of timid beauty
in the troupe, and for coachman the stupid Grenicheux. A burst of
applause brought them out again holding hands, those who five seconds
before had been tormenting one another and were about to come to blows,
bowing and smiling