The gardener had two little boys, José and Capito, who were a few years older than Charlie, but about his size, and he took a tremendous fancy to them. They were clad, simply, in thin gauze⁠—or jusi ⁠—shirts which came down a little below their waists, and I think Charlie envied them this informal attire. He used to order them around in a strange mixture of Spanish, Tagalog and English which made me wonder at my wholly American child; but it was an effective combination since he seemed to have them completely under his thumb and, as he revelled in his sense of power, he never tired of playing with them.

Maria and I soon adopted the universal habit of driving down to the Escolta in the early morning to do such shopping as was necessary. We found a variety of interesting shops, but with very little in them to meet the ordinary demands of an American woman. There were delightful Indian bazaars and Chinese tiendas where all manner of gaudy fabrics and strange oriental articles were on sale, while the Spanish shops upon which everybody had to depend in those days, and which had such grandly European names as Paris-Manila and La Puerta del Sol, catered largely to the Filipino taste for bright colours.