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Far down the street we heard the music and the sound of the women's heelless slippers shuffling over the polished floor to a breathlessly fast waltz. If possible the people of Misamis dance faster and hop higher than the people of Dumaguete, and how the women manage to keep on their chinelas during these wild gyrations is quite beyond me.

Nearly all the Signal Corps employees, being men of social standing because of their really princely salaries, fifteen gold dollars a month, sported such suits, which with the addition of stockings and neat tan shoes, instead of bare feet thrust carelessly into chinelas, gave them the appearance of belonging to the native four hundred, any one of them looking eligible for the high office of presidente or secretario.

As I have said before, she was a fat old lady, and the way was steep; but finally, after much persuasion, she slipped her bare feet out of their velvet chinelas, gathered her voluminous skirts close about her, and, seating herself upon the top step of the ladder, slid down! Surely a simple solution of the difficulty.

"Yes, we all like to have our feet ready to jump into mud or water, for our roads are not yet good. They have no heel and just a catch to put the toe in. They have no laces. With them we slide along the ground. But we cannot back up straight, or run last in them. If we wish to go back we must turn around, so as to keep our chinelas on our toes.

"Poor Filipino trash!" was all she could say for a long time, and I finally pieced it out that she was enraged because the Filipino boys and girls in my book were sometimes barefooted, sometimes clad in chinelas, and wore native camisas instead of American suits and dresses. I pointed out to her that not one Filipino child in a hundred dresses otherwise, but my argument was of no avail.