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A dollar in American money will charter one of these quilez for hours, and the heat renders it an advisable investment for one who has far to go. Automobiles were scarce, though they had penetrated even this congested Escolta. Here and there an Army officer or orderly appeared on horseback in the crush of the street.
Many Filipino families of the upper class permit their daughters to go to and from the American schools on the trolley car, and it is no uncommon thing to see three or four youngsters, all under ten, climbing on and off with their books, asking for transfers, and enjoying their liberty, who ten years ago would have been huddled into a quilez and guarded by an elderly woman servant.
Out in the street a score of carriages and as many quilez and carromattas stood waiting by the curb, and gallant Captain Taylor, of the Esmeralda, could have added gold by the hundred to his well-earned store would he but have promised to hold his ship until the court not the tide served.
Before I got into my quilez my ire was roused again at the sight of the red-headed beggar lounging in a doorway across the street, obviously watching me. It was plain enough that Meeker had sent him to spy upon me and learn if I went to the steamship office. The little beggar saw me looking at him and dodged into a doorway, but fled when he saw me start after him.
Banks, stores, restaurants, mineral water kiosks all the places of resort along the Escolta were abundantly patronized, yet none save the cocheros perched up on the little seats of the quilez appeared to be at all in a hurry. Yet one man in particular appeared to be devoid of hurry. In fact, he paused or halted whenever the two boyish young sergeants did.
The sidewalks are crowded with hurrying throngs; the streets jammed with traffic, for in Manila few of the whites or the wealthier natives ever think of walking more than a block or two. The quilez, the little two-wheeled car drawn by a six-hundred-pound pony, is the common means of getting about.
Hal and Noll bolted through the rain, darted into the quilez through the door at the rear, and plumped themselves down on the seats. "Sigue directio, Malate, cuartel nipa," ordered Hal, thus instructing the driver to go straight ahead to Malate and to take them to the nipa barracks. The Filipino driver himself was drenched.
He stepped to the door and saw me enter a quilez, and there was a gleam of anger in his crafty old eyes. The sunlight made him blink, for he was not wearing goggles, and as I rolled toward the Parian Gate, I looked back and saw him standing in the door and shading his eyes with his hand to look after me.
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