ain then and there. Her chickens would sell for ten cents gold, but
for no media-peseta. I asked her how she knew I had gold, and she said
that did not matter--I had some "diutang-a-dacolds" (little dacolds),
and she was willing to sell hens for ten "diutang-a-dacolds" _gold_,
but not for media-pesetas. So I counted her out fifty new coppers
and we both rejoiced in our bargain. I told her that the media-peseta
was worth ten dacolds, but she wanted the bright new money.

For the next two hours I was persecuted with truck-sellers. Ordinarily
the fishermen were unwilling to stop and sell in the streets or in
private houses, preferring to do all their business in the market,
but that morning, I could have had the pick of half the catch. Finally
came a woman who had had a straight tale from the first woman. Woman
number two had nothing to sell, but, after a minute, she pulled out a
jagged old media-peseta and said that she had heard that I said that a
media-peseta was worth ten of the new gold pieces. If I was as good as
my word, why not change her media-peseta for gold? I said that I would
do it if she would give me the new media-peseta, but that I could not
do it for the old. When she wanted to know where she could get a new
media-peseta, and I told her the Treasurer would redeem old silver at
the government ratio, she went off to get a new media-peseta, but it
was plain that she distrusted me. The people flocked to my house all
day trying to get me to buy something and to pay them in the new coins.

It was remarkable how easily and quickly one circulating medium
disappeared and another took its place. At first there was some trouble
about getting the poor people to recognize the copper on a basis of a
hundred to a peso. They were willing enough to receive change on that
basis, but, in giving it, tried to treat the new centavo as a dacold,
eighty to the peso. I had to have one Chinese baker arrested for
persistently giving short change to my _muchacha_, and the Treasurer
had a long line of delinquents before him each morning admonishing
them that they could not play tricks with Uncle Sam's legal tender. But
on the whole the change went off quickly and without much friction.

This morning I asked my maid, an elderly woman, if she remembered the
old money we had four years ago. She struck her forehead with her hand,
and thought a long time. Finally her face lit up. She remembered those
Iggorote dacolds and a silver five-cen