About this time, however, the gentlemen who were running that province engaged in the real game which we were imitating, and became involved in a quarrel which threatened to strain the relations between Americans and Filipinos to the breaking point.  Governor Taft came down in person to look into the affair.  There was a banquet and there were speeches.  The Filipino Governor prefaced his oratorical flight by the statement that three times only in his life had he trembled.  Time has clouded my memory, but I think he said the first of these was when he took his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Spain; the second was when he led his fair partner to the matrimonial altar; and the third was that present occasion when he stood up before that illustrious assembly, seeking words in which to welcome the distinguished guest.

He did not look as if he were suffering from nervousness, and his words flowed with sufficient ease to indicate that he was not having much trouble in the search.  Sitting at the far end of the festal board, contemplating my glass of tinto (I am unable to say whether I drank tinto because the champagne ran short or because, being feminine and educational, I was deemed unworthy of the best), I reflected somewhat cynically that if he was telling the strict truth, his childhood must have been singularly barren of the penalties which follow real childish joy, or else his was a remarkable personality.

But that is neither here nor there.  The utterance wafted me a gentle amusement at the time.  But from that time on, the boys of my literary society began to tremble—­always twice anteriorly, and for the third time when they stood up before that intellectual and critical assemblage.  Every boy for weeks to come used that worn-out preface for his remarks.  The pupils gave no signs either of amusement or scorn.  Apparently they received it seriously as an eminently becoming preface of oratory, just as they do the “Do-minus vobiscum” of the mass.  But one day I spoke of it in one of the classes—­intentionally not in the society.  When they saw our viewpoint, they shrieked with delight, and from that time on, the budding orators ceased to tremble.

At last we arrived at the point of an open session, and the event was what is described in society papers as one of the social events of the season.  We had really a good programme, we transacted quite a little business in accordance with parliamentary usage:  we elected the Governor, the Presidente, and several prominent citizens honorary members, and they acknowledged the compliment with appropriate remarks.