Instance, but which was, that day, a sort of anteroom to the voting precinct located in the former sala of the palace.  My school-room would, therefore, command a full view of the polls.  For several days I lived in dread of hearing that election day would be declared a school holiday, but no order came to that effect, and on election day I went to school with my mind bent on taking notes of all that went on, also wondering a little if in case the non-expected riot came off, I should not have to vacate a little hurriedly.

By nine o’clock the court-room was packed with electors and lobbyists, or whatever the interested outsiders may be called.  Through the glass doors we could see them in groups, some laughing and chatting in ordinary social converse, others dark and gloomy, others gathered in whispering knots with fingers on lips, much mysterious nodding and shrugging of shoulders, and all the innocent evidences of conspiracy.  Beyond, through double doors, the voting precinct was in full view, my twenty-five desks occupied by meditative concejales, sucking the ends of their pencils.  There were the judges and the ballot boxes, symbols of progress and modernity, and there, too, as a concession to dignity which fills the Filipino with joy, were two dear little constabulary soldiers with guns about as long as themselves.  Their khaki suits were spick and span from the laundry, their red shoulder straps blazed, their gilt braid glittered, and their white gloves were as snowy as pipe clay could make them.  Their little brown faces were stolid enough to delight the most ambitious commander.  The whole was a sight to cheer the heart of rampant democracy.

In the midst of the throng in the court-room, jovial, lusty, bright of eye, loitered our easy-going chief of constabulary.  His was no common girth at any time, but belted with a particularly large-sized and vicious-looking revolver, he seemed to be at least sixty inches around the waist.  There was something casual about that revolver, and at the same time something very significant.  But nothing could have been more blandly unconscious than the Captain’s manner.  He had what is commonly described as “a kind word and a sweet smile for everybody.”  There were constabulary reserves a block away, but the Captain’s appearance was an assurance that there would be no need for the reserves.  He loafed about, chatting first with one group and then with another.  The conspirator looks gave way to laughter and clappings on the back, but when he turned away, more than one eye followed the time-worn holster and its bulky contents.

That election went off as calmly as a county fair—­much more calmly, indeed, though there was a reclama afterwards, and a long struggle about it which had to be decided by the Court of First Instance.  The quarrel over the election was not related, however, to the Captain’s presence there.