anthropic enterprise
and was speaking of the architect when Your Reverence...."

"Well, I don't understand architecture," interrupted Father Damaso,
"but architects and the dunces who go to them make me laugh! You have
an example right here. I drew the plan for a church and it has been
constructed perfectly: so an English jeweler who was one day a guest
at the convent told me. To draught a plan, one need have but a small
degree of intelligence."

"However," replied the Alcalde, seeing that Ibarra was silent,
"when we are dealing with certain edifices, for example a school,
we need a skilled man (perito)."

"He who needs a perito is a perrito (little dog)!" exclaimed Father
Damaso, with a scoff. "One would have to be more of a brute than the
natives, who erect their own houses, if he did not know how to build
four walls and put a covering over them. That's all that a school
house is."

All looked toward Ibarra. But the young man, even if he did look pale,
kept on conversing with Maria Clara.

"But Your Reverence should consider...."

"Just look you," continued the Franciscan without allowing the Alcalde
to speak. "See how one of our lay brothers, the most stupid one we
have, has built a good hospital, handsome and cheap. It is well built
and he did not pay more than eight cuartos a day to those whom he
employed even those who came from other towns. That fellow knows how
to treat them. He does not do like many fools and mesticillos [13]
who spoil them by paying them three or four reales."

"Does Your Reverence say that he only paid eight
cuartos? Impossible!" said the Alcalde, trying to change the course
of the conversation.

"Yes, Senor; and those who brag of being good Spaniards ought to
imitate him. You can see very well now, since the Suez Canal was
opened, corruption has come here. Before, when we had to double the
Cape, there were not so many worthless people coming out here, nor
did Filipinos go abroad to be corrupted and spoiled."

"But, Father Damaso!"

"You know very well what the native is. As quickly as he learns
anything, he goes and becomes a doctor. All these ignoramuses who go
to Europe...."

"But listen, Your Reverence ..." interrupted the Alcalde, becoming
uneasy at such harsh words.

"They are all going to end as they merit," he continued. "The hand of
God is upon them and one must be blind not to see it. Even in this
life, the fathers of such vipers receive their punishment.... They
d