Page:The reign of greed (1912).pdf/236

 Serpolette was surrounded by two gallant officers, a sailor, and a lawyer, when she caught sight of him moving about, sticking the tip of his long nose into all the nooks and corners, as though with it he were ferreting out all the mysteries of the stage. She ceased her chatter, knitted her eyebrows, then raised them, opened her lips and with the vivacity of a Parisienne left her admirers to hurl herself like a torpedo upon our critic.

"Tiens, tiens, Toutou! Mon lapin!" she cried, catching Padre Irene's arm and shaking it merrily, while the air rang with her silvery laugh.

"Tut, tut!" objected Padre Irene, endeavoring to conceal himself.

"Mais, comment! Toi ici, grosse bête! Et moi qui t'croyais—"

''Tais pas d'tapage, Lily! Il faut m'respecter! 'Suis ici l'Pape!''

With great difficulty Padre Irene made her listen to reason, for Lily was enchantée to meet in Manila an old friend who reminded her of the coulisses of the Grand Opera House. So it was that Padre Irene, fulfilling at the same time his duties as a friend and a critic, had initiated the applause to encourage her, for Serpolette deserved it.

Meanwhile, the young men were waiting for the cancan. Pecson became all eyes, but there was everything except cancan. There was presented the scene in which, but for the timely arrival of the representatives of the law, the women would have come to blows and torn one another's hair out, incited thereto by the mischievous peasants, who, like our students, hoped to see something more than the cancan.

The music ceased, the men went away, the women returned, a few at a time, and started a conversation among