Page:The Social Cancer.djvu/83

 safe arrival. Oy! Bring on the tinola! I ordered tinola as you doubtless have not tasted any for so long a time."

A large steaming tureen was brought in. The Dominican, after muttering the benedicite, to which scarcely any one knew how to respond, began to serve the contents. But whether from carelessness or other cause, Padre Damaso received a plate in which a bare neck and a tough wing of chicken floated about in a large quantity of soup amid lumps of squash, while the others were eating legs and breasts, especially Ibarra, to whose lot fell the second joints. Observing all this, the Franciscan mashed up some pieces of squash, barely tasted the soup, dropped his spoon noisily, and roughly pushed his plate away. The Dominican was very busy talking to the rubicund youth.

"How long have you been away from the country?" Laruja asked Ibarra.

"Almost seven years."

"Then you have probably forgotten all about it."

"Quite the contrary. Even if my country does seem to have forgotten me, I have always thought about it."

"How do you mean that it has forgotten you?" inquired the rubicund youth.

"I mean that it has been a year since I have received any news from here, so that I find myself a stranger who does not yet know how and when his father died."

This statement drew a sudden exclamation from the lieutenant.

"And where were you that you didn't telegraph?” asked Doña Victorina. "When we were married we telegraphed to the Peñinsula."

"Señora, for the past two years I have been in the northern part of Europe, in Germany and Russian Poland."

Doctor De Espadaña, who until now had not ventured upon any conversation, thought this a good opportunity to say something. "I-I knew in S-spain a P-pole from