“Gentlemen,” said Makaraig, who had prepared the menu, “there are three courses yet. Chinese stew made of pork—”
“Which should be dedicated to Padre Irene.”
“Get out! Padre Irene doesn’t eat pork, unless he turns his nose away,” whispered a young man from Iloilo to his neighbor.
“Let him turn his nose away!”
“Down with Padre Irene’s nose,” cried several at once.
“Respect, gentlemen, more respect!” demanded Pecson with comic gravity.
“The third course is a lobster pie—”
“Which should be dedicated to the friars,” suggested he of the Visayas.
“For the lobsters’ sake,” added Sandoval.
“Right, and call it friar pie!”
The whole crowd took this up, repeating in concert, “Friar pie!”
“I protest in the name of one of them,” said Isagani.
“And I, in the name of the lobsters,” added Tadeo.
“Respect, gentlemen, more respect!” again demanded Pecson with a full mouth.
“The fourth is stewed pansit, which is dedicated—to the government and the country!”
All turned toward Makaraig, who went on: “Until recently, gentlemen, the pansit was believed to be Chinese or Japanese, but the fact is that, being unknown in China or Japan, it would seem to be Filipino, yet those who prepare it and get the benefit from it are the Chinese—the same, the very, very same that happens to the government and to the Philippines: they seem to be Chinese, but whether they are or not, the Holy Mother has her doctors—all eat and enjoy it, yet characterize it as disagreeable and loathsome, the same as with the country, the same as with the government. All live at its cost, all share in its feast, and afterwards there is no worse country than the Philippines, there is no government more imperfect. Let us then dedicate the pansit to the country and to the government.”
“Agreed!” many exclaimed.
“I protest!” cried Isagani.
“Respect for the weaker, respect for the victims,” called Pecson in a hollow voice, waving a chicken-bone in the air.
“Let’s dedicate the pansit to Quiroga the Chinaman, one of the four powers of the Filipino world,” proposed Isagani.
“No, to his Black Eminence.”
“Silence!” cautioned one mysteriously. “There are people in the plaza watching us, and walls have ears.”
True it was that curious groups were standing by the windows, while the talk and laughter in the adjoining houses had ceased altogether, as if the people there were giving their attention to what was occurring at the banquet. There was something extraordinary about the silence.
“Tadeo, deliver your speech,” Makaraig whispered to him.
It had been agreed that Sandoval, who possessed the most oratorical ability, should deliver the last toast as a summing up.
Tadeo, lazy as ever, had prepared nothing, so he found himself in a quandary. While disposing of a long string of vermicelli, he meditated how to get out of the difficulty, until he recalled a speech learned in school and decided to plagiarize it, with adulterations.
“Beloved brethren in project!” he began, gesticulating with two Chinese chopsticks.
“Brute! Keep that chopstick out of my hair!” cried his neighbor.
“Called by you to fill the void that has been left in—”
“Plagiarism!” Sandoval interrupted him. “That speech was delivered by the president of our lyceum.”
“Called by your election,” continued the imperturbable Tadeo, “to fill the void that has been left in my mind”—pointing to his stomach—“by a man famous for his Christian principles and for his inspirations and projects, worthy of some little remembrance, what can one like myself say of him, I who am very hungry, not having breakfasted?”
“Have a neck, my friend!” called a neighbor, offering that portion of a chicken.
“There is one course, gentlemen, the treasure of a people who are today a tale and a mockery in the world, wherein have thrust their hands the greatest gluttons of the western regions of the earth—” Here he pointed with his chopsticks to Sandoval, who was struggling with a refractory chicken-wing.
“And eastern!” retorted the latter, describing a circle in the air with his spoon, in order to include all the banqueters.
“No interruptions!”
“I demand the floor!”
“I demand pickles!” added Isagani.
“Bring on the stew!”
All echoed this request, so Tadeo sat down, contented with having got out of his quandary.
The dish consecrated to Padre Irene did not appear to be extra good, as Sandoval cruelly demonstrated thus: “Shining with grease outside and with pork inside! Bring on the third course, the friar pie!”
The pie was not yet ready, although the sizzling of the grease in the frying-pan could be heard. They took advantage of the delay to drink, begging Pecson to talk.
Pecson crossed himself gravely and arose, restraining his clownish laugh with an effort, at the same time mimicking a certain Augustinian preacher, then famous, and beginning in a murmur, as though he were reading a text.
“Si tripa plena laudat Deum, tripa famelica laudabit fratres—if the full stomach praises God, the hungry stomach will praise the friars. Words spoken by the Lord Custodio through the mouth of Ben-Zayb, in the journal El Grito de la Integridad, the second article, absurdity the one hundred and fifty-seventh.
“Beloved brethren in Christ: Evil blows its foul breath over the verdant shores of Frailandia, commonly called the Philippine Archipelago. No day passes but the attack is renewed, but there is heard some sarcasm against the reverend, venerable, infallible corporations, defenseless and unsupported. Allow me, brethren, on this occasion to constitute myself a knight-errant to sally forth in defense of the unprotected, of the holy corporations that have reared us, thus again confirming the saving idea of the adage—a full stomach praises God, which is to say, a hungry stomach will praise the friars.”
“Bravo, bravo!”
“Listen,” said Isagani seriously, “I want you to understand that, speaking of friars, I respect one.”
Sandoval was getting merry, so he began to sing a shady couplet about the friars.
“Hear me, brethren!” continued Pecson. “Turn your gaze toward the happy days of your infancy, endeavor to analyze the present and ask yourselves about the future. What do you find? Friars, friars, and friars! A friar baptized you, confirmed you, visited you in
