e of Madame President, giving her directions in an
undertone. All the teachers were elected honorary members, and one
was critic. Peace reigned and Joy flapped her wings.

About this time, however, the gentlemen who were running that province
engaged in the real game which we were imitating, and became involved
in a quarrel which threatened to strain the relations between Americans
and Filipinos to the breaking point. Governor Taft came down in
person to look into the affair. There was a banquet and there were
speeches. The Filipino Governor prefaced his oratorical flight by the
statement that three times only in his life had he trembled. Time has
clouded my memory, but I think he said the first of these was when he
took his Bachelor's degree from the University of Spain; the second was
when he led his fair partner to the matrimonial altar; and the third
was that present occasion when he stood up before that illustrious
assembly, seeking words in which to welcome the distinguished guest.

He did not look as if he were suffering from nervousness, and
his words flowed with sufficient ease to indicate that he was not
having much trouble in the search. Sitting at the far end of the
festal board, contemplating my glass of _tinto_ (I am unable to say
whether I drank _tinto_ because the champagne ran short or because,
being feminine and educational, I was deemed unworthy of the best), I
reflected somewhat cynically that if he was telling the strict truth,
his childhood must have been singularly barren of the penalties which
follow real childish joy, or else his was a remarkable personality.

But that is neither here nor there. The utterance wafted me a gentle
amusement at the time. But from that time on, the boys of my literary
society began to tremble--always twice anteriorly, and for the
third time when they stood up before that intellectual and critical
assemblage. Every boy for weeks to come used that worn-out preface
for his remarks. The pupils gave no signs either of amusement or
scorn. Apparently they received it seriously as an eminently becoming
preface of oratory, just as they do the "Do-minus vobiscum" of the
mass. But one day I spoke of it in one of the classes--intentionally
not in the society. When they saw our viewpoint, they shrieked with
delight, and from that time on, the budding orators ceased to tremble.

At last we arrived at the point of an open session, and the event
was what is described in society p