performance.

"Your duckling,

"CUSTODINING."

"How tender the man is!" exclaimed Tadeo with emotion.

"Well?" said Sandoval. "I don't see anything wrong about this--quite
the reverse!"

"Yes," rejoined Makaraig with his bitter smile, "decided
favorably! I've just seen Padre Irene."

"What does Padre Irene say?" inquired Pecson.

"The same as Don Custodio, and the rascal still had the audacity
to congratulate me. The Commission, which has taken as its own the
decision of the arbiter, approves the idea and felicitates the students
on their patriotism and their thirst for knowledge--"

"Well?"

"Only that, considering our duties--in short, it says that in order
that the idea may not be lost, it concludes that the direction
and execution of the plan should be placed in charge of one of
the religious corporations, in case the Dominicans do not wish to
incorporate the academy with the University."

Exclamations of disappointment greeted the announcement. Isagani rose,
but said nothing.

"And in order that we may participate in the management of the
academy," Makaraig went on, "we are intrusted with the collection
of contributions and dues, with the obligation of turning them over
to the treasurer whom the corporation may designate, which treasurer
will issue us receipts."

"Then we're tax-collectors!" remarked Tadeo.

"Sandoval," said Pecson, "there's the gauntlet--take it up!"

"Huh! That's not a gauntlet--from its odor it seems more like a sock."

"The funniest, part of it," Makaraig added, "is that Padre Irene has
advised us to celebrate the event with a banquet or a torchlight
procession--a public demonstration of the students _en masse_ to
render thanks to all the persons who have intervened in the affair."

"Yes, after the blow, let's sing and give thanks. _Super flumina
Babylonis sedimus_!"

"Yes, a banquet like that of the convicts," said Tadeo.

"A banquet at which we all wear mourning and deliver funeral orations,"
added Sandoval.

"A serenade with the Marseillaise and funeral marches," proposed
Isagani.

"No, gentlemen," observed Pecson with his clownish grin, "to celebrate
the event there's nothing like a banquet in a _pansiteria_, served
by the Chinamen without camisas. I insist, without camisas!"

The sarcasm and grotesqueness of this idea won it ready acceptance,
Sandoval being the first to applaud it, for he had long wished to see
the interior of one of those