That other, an elderly man who closely examines the lamps, pictures, and other furnishings with grimaces and ejaculations of disdain, is Don Timoteo Pelaez, Juanito's father, a merchant who inveighs against the Chinese competition that is ruining his business.

"The port works, which weigh so heavily upon commerce, and the port not yet completed!" sighed Don Timoteo Pelaez.

"Yes," rejoined Don Timoteo, "but look what that decree cost me!

" Simoun became silent, and from that time on he was often seen in the store of Don Timoteo Pelaez, with whom it was said he had entered into partnership.

Some weeks afterward, in the month of April, it was rumored that Juanito Pelaez, Don Timoteo's son, was going to marry Paulita Gomez, the girl coveted by Spaniards and foreigners.

Juanito was clever, capable, gay, shrewd, the son of a rich merchant of Manila, and a Spanish mestizo besidesif Don Timoteo was to be believed, a full-blooded Spaniard.

Towards the end of April, all the fears being now forgotten, Manila was engrossed with one topic: the fiesta that Don Timoteo Pelaez was going to celebrate at the wedding of his son, for which the General had graciously and condescendingly agreed to be the patron.

Friendship with Simoun became a matter of dispute, and many husbands were forced by their wives to purchase bars of steel and sheets of galvanized iron in order to make friends with Don Timoteo Pelaez.

Don Timoteo Pelaez was reaching the pinnacle of fortune, and the reality surpassed his dreams.

Timoteo, what more could you desire?

The only decorations not in good taste were the screaming chromos which Don Timoteo had substituted for the old drawings and pictures of saints of Capitan Tiago.

Don't say that Don Timoteo did not know how to comport himself in the Philippines!

Don Timoteo had sought the most rare and expensive in everything, nor would he have hesitated at crime had he been assured that the Captain-General liked to eat human flesh.

Don Timoteo bowed here and bowed there, scattered his best smiles, tightened his belt, stepped backward, turned halfway round, then completely around, and so on again and again, until one goddess could not refrain from remarking to her neighbor, under cover of her fan: "My dear, how important the old man is!

Don Timoteo began to feel his belt squeezing him, the corns on his feet began to ache, his neck became tired, but still the General had not come.

repeated Don Timoteo, with a smile and a desire to choke him.

Don Timoteo swore to himself that on the very next day he would present for payment all the chits that the critic had signed in his store.

The Captain-General!" Pale with emotion, Don Timoteo, dissembling the pain of his corns and accompanied by his son and some of the greater gods, descended to receive the Mighty Jove.

His Excellency literally took possession of the house, as Don Timoteo stammeringly begged him to do.

"My dear," murmured into the ear of a neighbor the lady who had referred to Don Timoteo as a jumping-jack, "did you ever see such a skirt?" "Ugh, the curtains from the Palace!"

As those who knew anything about the events that night in Don Timoteo's house were for the most part military officials and government employees, it was not difficult to suppress the affair in public, for it concerned the integrity of the fatherland.

Chichoy had gone to deliver some work for Don Timoteo Pelaez, a pair of earrings for the bride, at the very time when they were tearing down the kiosk that on the previous night had served as a dining-room for the foremost officials.

"Don Timoteo," continued Chichoy, "did not know to whom to attribute the deed.

Wasn't he a partner of Don Timoteo's?" "Yes, he made himself a partner in order to strike the blow and kill all the Spaniards.

The names of Don Timoteo Murphy, of Jasper O'Farrell, of Dolans, Burkes, Breens, and Hallorins are linked with the annals of the coast while that territory was still under Spanish rule, and when Fremont crossed the plains and planted the "Bear flag" beyond the Sierras, we find Irishmen among his trusted lieutenants.