know? Look, what a
fool this Basilio is! To have a sweetheart who doesn't know a word
of Spanish, who hasn't any money, and who has been a servant! She's
as shy as she can be, but pretty. Padre Camorra one night started to
club two fellows who were serenading her and I don't know how it was
he didn't kill them, yet with all that she was just as shy as ever. But
it'll result for her as it does with all the women, all of them!"

Juanito Pelaez laughed with a full mouth, as though he thought this
a glorious thing, while Placido stared at him in disgust.

"Listen, what did the professor explain yesterday?" asked Juanito,
changing the conversation.

"Yesterday there was no class."

"Oho, and the day before yesterday?"

"Man, it was Thursday!"

"Right! What an ass I am! Don't you know, Placido, that I'm getting
to be a regular ass? What about Wednesday?"

"Wednesday? Wait--Wednesday, it was a little wet."

"Fine! What about Tuesday, old man?"

"Tuesday was the professor's nameday and we went to entertain him
with an orchestra, present him flowers and some gifts."

"Ah, _carambas!_" exclaimed Juanito, "that I should have forgotten
about it! What an ass I am! Listen, did he ask for me?"

Penitente shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, but they gave him
a list of his entertainers."

"_Carambas!_ Listen--Monday, what happened?"

"As it was the first school-day, he called the roll and assigned the
lesson--about mirrors. Look, from here to here, by memory, word for
word. We jump all this section, we take that." He was pointing out
with his finger in the "Physics" the portions that were to be learned,
when suddenly the book flew through the air, as a result of the slap
Juanito gave it from below.

"Thunder, let the lessons go! Let's have a _dia pichido!_"

The students in Manila call _dia pichido_ a school-day that falls
between two holidays and is consequently suppressed, as though forced
out by their wish.

"Do you know that you really are an ass?" exclaimed Placido, picking
up his book and papers.

"Let's have a _dia pichido!_" repeated Juanito.

Placido was unwilling, since for only two the authorities were hardly
going to suspend a class of more than a hundred and fifty. He recalled
the struggles and privations his mother was suffering in order to keep
him in Manila, while she went without even the necessities of life.

They were just passing through the breach of Santo Domingo, and
Juanito, gazing acr