groups, some laughing and chatting
in ordinary social converse, others dark and gloomy, others gathered
in whispering knots with fingers on lips, much mysterious nodding
and shrugging of shoulders, and all the innocent evidences of
conspiracy. Beyond, through double doors, the voting precinct was in
full view, my twenty-five desks occupied by meditative _concejales_,
sucking the ends of their pencils. There were the judges and the
ballot boxes, symbols of progress and modernity, and there, too,
as a concession to dignity which fills the Filipino with joy, were
two dear little constabulary soldiers with guns about as long as
themselves. Their khaki suits were spick and span from the laundry,
their red shoulder straps blazed, their gilt braid glittered, and
their white gloves were as snowy as pipe clay could make them. Their
little brown faces were stolid enough to delight the most ambitious
commander. The whole was a sight to cheer the heart of rampant
democracy.

In the midst of the throng in the court-room, jovial, lusty, bright
of eye, loitered our easy-going chief of constabulary. His was no
common girth at any time, but belted with a particularly large-sized
and vicious-looking revolver, he seemed to be at least sixty inches
around the waist. There was something casual about that revolver,
and at the same time something very significant. But nothing could
have been more blandly unconscious than the Captain's manner. He
had what is commonly described as "a kind word and a sweet smile for
everybody." There were constabulary reserves a block away, but the
Captain's appearance was an assurance that there would be no need for
the reserves. He loafed about, chatting first with one group and then
with another. The conspirator looks gave way to laughter and clappings
on the back, but when he turned away, more than one eye followed the
time-worn holster and its bulky contents.

That election went off as calmly as a county fair--much more calmly,
indeed, though there was a _reclama_ afterwards, and a long struggle
about it which had to be decided by the Court of First Instance. The
quarrel over the election was not related, however, to the Captain's
presence there.

Apparently the Church was interested in the election, for every
shovel-hatted _padre_ in the district seemed to have come in for
it. They and the provincial dignitaries from towns which had not then
risen to the dignity of an American public school, wandered