s sing, for he is plaintive and
inexpressive. He looks so sorry that Americans cannot speak their
own language as he speaks English! But there are phrases delivered by
Americans that he understands, such as, "Blankety, blank, blank--you
all come here." Francisco does not go there, but with humble step
elsewhere, affecting to find a pressing case for his intervention,
but when he can no longer avoid your eye catching him he smiles a
sweet but most superior smile, such as becomes one who speaks English
and is the responsible man about the house.

There never was one who did more on a capital of one hundred words. His
labors have been lightened slightly, for the Americans have picked up a
few Spanish words, such as, "Ha mucher, mucher--don't you know? Hielo,
hielo!" Hielo is ice, and after the "mucher" is duly digested the
average waiter comes, by and by, with a lump as big as a hen's egg
and is amazed by the shouts continuing "hielo, hielo!" pronounced
much like another and wicked word.

"Oh, blanketination mucher mucher hielo!" The Filipinos cannot
contemplate lightly the consumption of slabs of ice. The last words
I heard in the dining-room of the Hotel Oriental were from a soldier
with two stars on each shoulder: "Francisco, oh, Francisco," and the
little woman with left shoulder exposed turned her despairing face
to the wall, her sorrow too deep for words or for weeping.

CHAPTER III

From Long Island To Luzon.

Across the Continent--An American Governor-General Steams Through
the Golden Gate--He Is a Minute-Man--Honolulu as a Health Resort--The
Lonesome Pacific--The Skies of Asia--Dreaming Under the Stars of the
Scorpion--The Southern Cross.

Spain, crowded between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, was the
world's "West" for many centuries, indeed until Columbus found a
further West, but he did not go far enough to find the East Indies. The
United States is now at work in both the East and West Indies.

Our Manila expeditions steamed into the sunsets, the boys pointing
out to each other the southern cross. The first stage of a journey,
to go half round the world on a visit to our new possession, was by
the annex boat from Brooklyn, and a rush on the Pennsylvania train,
that glimmers with gold and has exhausted art on wheels, to Washington,
to get the political latitude and longitude by observation of the two
domes, that of the Capitol, and the library, and the tremendous needle
of snow that is the monu