fe; he can go there and in two
or three days call a halt on 'Driveller' Juan." "Good."

"We must arrange for you to dismiss the new judge and put in some friend
of yours, and one fine day we will get a quarrel started and we will put
all Father Martin's friends in jail."

"You two play atrocious politics," said Alzugaray, who was listening to
the conversation.

"It's the only kind that will work," replied Ortigosa. "This is
scientific politics. Ruffianism converted into philosophy. We are
playing a game of chess with Father Martin and we are going to see if we
can't win it."

"But, man, employing all these cut-throats!"

"My dear friend," responded Caesar, "political situations include such
things; with their heads they touch the noblest things, the safety of
one's native land and the race; with their feet they touch the meanest
things, plots, vices, crimes. A politician of today still has to mingle
with reptiles, even though he be an honourable man."

"Besides, we need have no scruples," added Ortigosa; "the inhabitants of
Castro are laboratory guinea-pigs. We are going to experiment on them,
we are going to see if they can stand the Liberal serum."

* * * * *

_THE TWO ASYLUMS_

A little after these rivalries between the Benevolent Society and the
Workmen's Club, which stirred up every one's passions to an extreme
never before known at Castro Duro, another motive for agitation
transpired.

There were two asylums in the town; the Municipal Aid and the Asylum of
the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The Municipal Aid had its own property and was wisely organized; the old
people were permitted to go out of the asylum, they had no uniform, and
from time to time they were allowed to drink a glass of something. In
the Little Sisters' Home, on the contrary, discipline was most severe;
all the inmates had to go dressed in a horrible uniform, which the
poor hated; to be present, like a chorus, at the funerals of important
persons; pray at every step; and besides all that, they were forbidden
under pain of expulsion, to smoke or to drink anything.

So the result was that there were abandoned old wretches, who, if they
couldn't get a place in the Aid, let themselves die in some corner,
rather than put on the uniform of the Little Sisters' Home, degrading in
their eyes.

That asylum had no income, because its Catholic managers had eaten it
all up. In view of the institution's bad economic condi