tail, nor was there a public man the secrets of whose
private life were unknown to him, nor could anything occur that he
had not foreseen, nor any reform be ordered but he had first been
consulted. All this was seasoned with attacks on the conservatives
in righteous indignation, with apologies of the liberal party, with
a little anecdote here, a phrase there from some great man, dropped
in as one who did not wish offices and employments, which same he
had refused in order not to be beholden to the conservatives. Such
was his enthusiasm in these first days that various cronies in
the grocery-store which he visited from time to time affiliated
themselves with the liberal party and began to style themselves
liberals: Don Eulogio Badana, a retired sergeant of carbineers;
the honest Armendia, by profession a pilot, and a rampant Carlist;
Don Eusebio Picote, customs inspector; and Don Bonifacio Tacon, shoe-
and harness-maker. [45]

But nevertheless, from lack of encouragement and of opposition, his
enthusiasm gradually waned. He did not read the newspapers that came
from Spain, because they arrived in packages, the sight of which made
him yawn. The ideas that he had caught having been all expended, he
needed reinforcement, and his orators were not there, and although in
the casinos of Manila there was enough gambling, and money was borrowed
as in Madrid, no speech that would nourish his political ideas was
permitted in them. But Don Custodio was not lazy, he did more than
wish--he worked. Foreseeing that he was going to leave his bones in
the Philippines, he began to consider that country his proper sphere
and to devote his efforts to its welfare. Thinking to liberalize it,
he commenced to draw up a series of reforms or projects, which were
ingenious, to say the least. It was he who, having heard in Madrid
mention of the wooden street pavements of Paris, not yet adopted in
Spain, proposed the introduction of them in Manila by covering the
streets with boards nailed down as they are on the sides of houses;
it was he who, deploring the accidents to two-wheeled vehicles,
planned to avoid them by putting on at least three wheels; it was
also he who, while acting as vice-president of the Board of Health,
ordered everything fumigated, even the telegrams that came from
infected places; it was also he who, in compassion for the convicts
that worked in the sun and with a desire of saving to the government
the cost of their equipment,