Page:The reign of greed (1912).pdf/97

 in-law, prepared to spend at least three thousand pesos. Sister Penchang was there to buy a diamond ring she had promised to the Virgin of Antipolo. She had left Juli at home memorizing a booklet the curate had sold her for four cuartos, with forty days of indulgence granted by the Archbishop to every one who read it or listened to it read.

"Jesús!" said the pious woman to Capitana Tika, "that poor girl has grown up like a mushroom planted by the tikbalang. I've made her read the book at the top of her voice at least fifty times and she doesn't remember a single word of it. She has a head like a sieve—full when it's in the water. All of us hearing her, even the dogs and cats, have won at least twenty years of indulgence."

Simoun arranged his two chests on the table, one being somewhat larger than the other. "You don't want plated jewelry or imitation gems. This lady," turning to Sinang, "wants real diamonds."

"That's it, yes, sir, diamonds, old diamonds, antique stones, you know," she responded. "Papa will pay for them, because he likes antique things, antique stones." Sinang was accustomed to joke about the great deal of Latin her father understood and the little her husband knew.

"It just happens that I have some antique jewels," replied Simoun, taking the canvas cover from the smaller chest, a polished steel case with bronze trimmings and stout locks. "I have necklaces of Cleopatra's, real and genuine, discovered in the Pyramids; rings of Roman senators and knights, found in the ruins of Carthage."

"Probably those that Hannibal sent back after the battle of Cannae!" exclaimed Capitan Basilio seriously, while he trembled with pleasure. The good man, though he had read much about the ancients, had never, by reason of the lack of museums in Filipinas, seen any of the objects of those times.

"I have brought besides costly earrings of Roman ladies,