rt he felt that he wasn't sorry he had run up against the town. This
Bill Hickson, in himself, was a character worth going miles to meet,
and if what he said was true, Archie stood a good chance of seeing the
notorious Aguinaldo, with his army of Filipinos, before the day was
over.

When he reached the lower floor, he found several men lounging about in
another poorly furnished room, and they were all similar in appearance
to the men he had seen at the door the night before. They looked at
him in an indifferent way, and didn't seem surprised that he should
be walking about without restraint. Bill Hickson stepped up to some of
them, and, after a few words in some language Archie didn't understand,
motioned for the boy to step up. He was told to shake hands with "all
the gents," and after he had done so he was offered a cigar, and Archie
began to realise that it was a very good thing that he had a friend at
the Filipino court. He thought, too, that if these men were samples,
Aguinaldo had a very poor lot of retainers, and later on he perceived
the real cause for the failure of the rebels to do anything more than
keep up a constant retreat. It was plain to see that the followers
of the rebel leader were "in it for what it was worth." They had no
difficulty, any of them, in getting enough to eat, and often they had
opportunities to enjoy themselves in great fashion by taking possession
of some Filipino village and ejecting the inmates of some particularly
fine house, with a well-stocked wine-cellar.

In looking out of the window Archie perceived that the town looked very
different this morning than when he saw it the evening before. Instead
of drawn blinds and shuttered windows, there was everywhere an evident
attempt at decoration in honour of the coming army. The streets were
crowded with a throng in holiday garb, and some of the soldiers of the
rebel army had already arrived, as they could be easily distinguished by
their ragged dress and ridiculous airs, walking up and down the street.
It was all such a scene as Archie had never seen before, and would have
made a great success as the scenario for a comic opera. But as a welcome
to an army, supposedly victorious, it was a dismal failure, and Archie
wondered what General Aguinaldo would think when he entered the town and
saw such shoddy patriotism everywhere. He hadn't long to wait,
however, before seeing the famous rebel and the effect upon him of the
celebration in his