stamping their feet, talking of levels, fish-corrals, the San Mateo River,[1] of cascos, of Indians, and so on, to the great satisfaction of their listeners and the undisguised disgust of an elderly Franciscan, remarkably thin and withered, and a handsome Dominican about whose lips flitted constantly a scornful smile.
The thin Franciscan, understanding the Dominican’s smile, decided to intervene and stop the argument. He was undoubtedly respected, for with a wave of his hand he cut short the speech of both at the moment when the friar-artilleryman was talking about experience and the journalist-friar about scientists.
"Scientists, Ben-Zayb—do you know what they are" asked the Franciscan in a hollow voice, scarcely stirring in his seat and making only a faint gesture with his skinny hand. "Here you have in the province a bridge, constructed by a brother of ours, which was not completed because the scientists, relying on their theories, condemned it as weak and scarcely safe—yet look, it is the bridge that has withstood all the floods and earthquakes!"[2]
"That’s it, puñales, that very thing, that was exactly what I was going to say!" exclaimed the friar-artilleryman, thumping his lists down on the arms of his bamboo chair. "That’s it, that bridge and the scientists! That was just what I was going to mention, Padre Salvi—puñales!"
Ben-Zayb remained silent, half smiling, either out of respect or because he really did not know what to reply, and yet his was the only thinking head in the Philippines! Padre Irene nodded his approval as he rubbed his long nose.
Padre Salvi, the thin and withered cleric, appeared to be satisfied with such submissiveness and went on in the
- ↑ Now generally known as the Mariquína.—Tr.
- ↑ This bridge, constructed in Lukban under the supervision of a Franciscan friar, was jocularly referred to as the Puente de Capricho, being apparently an ignorant blunder in the right direction, since it was declared in an official report made by Spanish engineers in 1852 to conform to no known principle of scientific construction, and yet proved to be strong and durable.—Tr.
