a fool--they
entertain a contempt for him, which develops into intolerable
impertinence. If the native comes to borrow, lend him a little less
than he asks for, after a verbose preamble; if one at once lent, or
gave, the full value requested, he would continue to invent a host of
pressing necessities, until one's patience was exhausted. He seldom
restores the loan of anything voluntarily. On being remonstrated with
for his remissness, after the date of repayment or return of the
article has expired, he will coolly reply, "You did not ask me for
it." An amusing case of native reasoning came within my experience
just recently. I lent some articles to an educated Filipino, who had
frequently been my guest, and, at the end of three months, I requested
their return. Instead of thanking me for their use, he wrote a letter
expressing his indignation at my reminder, saying that I "ought to know
they were in very good hands!" A native considers it no degradation
to borrow money: it gives him no recurrent feeling of humiliation or
distress of mind. Thus, he will often give a costly feast to impress
his neighbours with his wealth and maintain his local prestige, whilst
on all sides he has debts innumerable. At most, with his looseness
of morality, he regards debt as an inconvenience, not as a calamity.

Before entering another (middle- or lower-class) native's house, he
is very complimentary, and sometimes three minutes' polite excusatory
dialogue is exchanged between the visitor and the native visited
before the former passes the threshold. When the same class of native
enters a European's house, he generally satisfies his curiosity by
looking all around, and often pokes his head into a private room,
asking permission to enter afterwards.

The lower-class native never comes at first call; among themselves it
is usual to call five or six times, raising the voice each time. If
a native is told to tell another to come, he seldom goes to him to
deliver the message, but calls him from a distance. When a native
steals (and I must say they are fairly honest), he steals only what he
wants. One of the rudest acts, according to their social code, is to
step over a person asleep on the floor. Sleeping is, with them, a very
solemn matter; they are very averse to waking any one, the idea being,
that during sleep the soul is absent from the body, and that if slumber
be suddenly arrested the soul might not have time to return. When a
person,