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"Excellent!" added the elders. "What should we get from a week of comedies, as the teniente-mayor proposes? What can we learn from the kings of Bohemia and Granada, who commanded that their daughters' heads be cut off, or that they should be blown from a cannon, which later is converted into a throne?

Don Filipo was the teniente-mayor of the town and leader of one of the parties the liberal faction, if it be possible to speak so, and if there exist parties in the towns of the Philippines. "Did you meet in the cemetery the son of the deceased Don Rafael, who has just returned from Europe?" "Yes, I saw him as he alighted from his carriage." "They say that he went to look for his father's grave.

"I should prefer not to be present," replied Padre Salvi in a low voice, paying no heed to the bitter tone of the alferez. "I'm very nervous." "As no one else has come to fill the place, I judged that your presence You know that they leave this afternoon." "Young Ibarra and the teniente-mayor?" The alferez pointed toward the jail. "There are eight there," he said.

Then he made his way to the gobernadorcillo's house, but was told that the gobernadorcillo was not there, he was at the convento; he went to the Justice of the Peace, but neither was the Justice of the Peace at home he had been summoned to the convento; he went to the teniente-mayor, but he too was at the convento; he directed his steps to the barracks, but the lieutenant of the Civil Guard was at the convento.

The lunch hour was now come, and the curate, the coadjutor, the gobernadorcillo, the teniente-mayor, and the other dignitaries took their seats at the table over which Ibarra presided. The mothers would not permit any of the men to eat at the table where the young women sat. "This time, Albino, you can't invent holes as in the bankas," said Leon to the quondam student of theology. "What!

tapis: A piece of dark cloth or lace, often richly worked or embroidered, worn at the waist somewhat in the fashion of an apron; a distinctive portion of the native women's attire, especially among the Tagalogs. tatakut: The Tagalog term for "fear." teniente-mayor: "Senior lieutenant," the senior member of the town council and substitute for the gobernadorcillo.

The cause of all this uproar was two civil-guards, clubs in hand, chasing the musicians in order to break up the performance. The teniente-mayor, with the aid of the cuadrilleros, who were armed with old sabers, managed at length to arrest them, in spite of their resistance. "Take them to the town hall!" cried Don Filipo. "Take care that they don't get away!"

We'll take the law into our own hands! To the barracks!" In vain the teniente-mayor pleaded with them. The crowd maintained its hostile attitude, so he looked about him for help and noticed Ibarra. "Señor Ibarra, as a favor! Restrain them while I get some cuadrilleros." "What can I do?" asked the perplexed youth, but the teniente-mayor was already at a distance.

Don't you know the proverb, 'Charity begins at home'?" "You had better say," replied the exasperated teniente-mayor, "that cowardice begins in selfishness and ends in shame! This very day I'm going to hand in my resignation to the alcalde. I'm tired of passing for a joke without being useful to anybody. Good-by!" The women had opinions of still another kind.

They represent respectively the conservative and the liberal parties, save that their disputes assume in the towns an extreme character. "The conduct of the gobernadorcillo fills me with distrust," Don Filipo, the teniente-mayor and leader of the liberal faction, was saying to his friends. "It was a deep-laid scheme, this thing of putting off the discussion of expenses until the eleventh hour.