at some six or eight regular periods during the day; at twelve, noon, the village band stationed itself on the plaza to run a lively opposition to the bells; and at sunset the charming ceremony of retreat brought us all out to see the flag drop down, and to hear the clear, long bugle notes; and there were sick call, mess call, and several other calls.  Not the least beautiful of these was “taps.”  I used to wait for it in the perfect stillness of starlit nights when the Filipinos had all gone to bed, and the houses were ever so faintly revealed by the lanterns burning dimly in front, and the faintest gleam told where the river was slipping by.  There would be no sound save the step of the trumpeter picking his way up the street.  Then the church clock would strike—­not the ordinary bell, but a deep-throated one that could have been heard for miles—­and as the vibrations of the last stroke died away, the first high-pitched, sweet notes would ring out, to fade away in the ineffable sadness of the closing strain.

But if there was much that was novel and more that was noisy in those first experiences, there was also plenty of irritation.  As I stated before, I had brought Romoldo from Iloilo to Capiz with the idea of using him for a cook.  In the days when I was still boarding, he had confirmed me in this intention by stating that he had had experience in that line with an American army officer.  He was particularly enthusiastic over his achievements with “hankeys.”  For a long while, I could make nothing of this word, but at last I discovered that it was his corruption of “pancakes.”  I found out this fact by asking Romoldo to explain how he made “hankeys,” and by recognizing among his ingredients milk, eggs, and flour.

As the Filipina with whom I boarded professed to be eager to learn American cookery, I told Romoldo to make some “hankeys.”  In the language of Virgil, I “shudder to relate” what those “hankeys” were.  There were three, nicely piled on top of one another, after our time-honored custom.  No words could fitly describe them.  They resembled unleavened bread, soaked in a clarifying liquid, heated, pressed down, and polished on both sides.  The Filipina tried to conceal her disgust, and pretended to accept my explanation that they were only a caricature of our loved breakfast delicacy; but I could see that she thought I was trying to cover up my newly acquired sense of national deficiency.

However, when I set up housekeeping, Romoldo was promoted to the office of chief cook and only bottle washer.  He conveyed to me a delicate intimation that it was not proper for me to live without a female attendant, and said that he had a friend—­a young woman lately orphaned—­who needed work and would be glad to have the position.  I was sufficiently unsophisticated in Filipino ways to take this statement at its face value.  As the orphan was willing to labor for a consideration of one dollar gold per month and room, the experiment could not be an expensive one.