18] But Fray Damaso is not so mysterious as they
were. He is full of merriment, and if the tone of his voice is rough
like that of a man who has never had occasion to correct himself and
who believes that whatever he says is holy and above improvement, still
his frank, merry laugh wipes out this disagreeable impression and even
obliges us to pardon his showing to the room bare feet and hairy legs
that would make the fortune of a Mendieta in the Quiapo fairs. [19]

One of the civilians is a very small man with a black beard, the only
thing notable about him being his nose, which, to judge from its size,
ought not to belong to him. The other is a rubicund youth, who seems
to have arrived but recently in the country. With him the Franciscan
is carrying on a lively discussion.

"You'll see," the friar was saying, "when you've been here a few
months you'll be convinced of what I say. It's one thing to govern
in Madrid and another to live in the Philippines."

"But--"

"I, for example," continued Fray Damaso, raising his voice still
higher to prevent the other from speaking, "I, for example, who can
look back over twenty-three years of bananas and _morisqueta_, know
whereof I speak. Don't come at me with theories and fine speeches,
for I know the Indian. [20] Mark well that the moment I arrived in the
country I was assigned to a toxin, small it is true, but especially
devoted to agriculture. I didn't understand Tagalog very well then,
but I was, soon confessing the women, and we understood one another
and they came to like me so well that three years later, when I was
transferred to another and larger town, made vacant by the death of
the native curate, all fell to weeping, they heaped gifts upon me,
they escorted me with music--"

"But that only goes to show--"

"Wait, wait! Don't be so hasty! My successor remained a shorter
time, and when he left he had more attendance, more tears, and more
music. Yet he had been more given to whipping and had raised the fees
in the parish to almost double."

"But you will allow me--"

"But that isn't all. I stayed in the town of San Diego twenty years
and it has been only a few months since I left it."

Here he showed signs of chagrin.

"Twenty years, no one can deny, are more than sufficient to get
acquainted with a town. San Diego has a population of six thousand
souls and I knew every inhabitant as well as if I had been his mother
and wet-nurse. I knew in which foot this on