those of the merchants, while he bent almost double.

Quiroga respected the jeweler greatly, not only because he knew him
to be very wealthy, but also on account of his rumored influence
with the Captain-General. It was reported that Simoun favored
Quiroga's ambitions, that he was an advocate for the consulate,
and a certain newspaper hostile to the Chinese had alluded to him
in many paraphrases, veiled allusions, and suspension points, in the
celebrated controversy with another sheet that was favorable to the
queued folk. Some prudent persons added with winks and half-uttered
words that his Black Eminence was advising the General to avail himself
of the Chinese in order to humble the tenacious pride of the natives.

"To hold the people in subjection," he was reported to have said,
"there's nothing like humiliating them and humbling them in their
own eyes."

To this end an opportunity had soon presented itself. The guilds
of mestizos and natives were continually watching one another,
venting their bellicose spirits and their activities in jealousy
and distrust. At mass one day the gobernadorcillo of the natives was
seated on a bench to the right, and, being extremely thin, happened
to cross one of his legs over the other, thus adopting a nonchalant
attitude, in order to expose his thighs more and display his pretty
shoes. The gobernadorcillo of the guild of mestizos, who was seated on
the opposite bench, as he had bunions, and could not cross his legs on
account of his obesity, spread his legs wide apart to expose a plain
waistcoat adorned with a beautiful gold chain set with diamonds. The
two cliques comprehended these maneuvers and joined battle. On the
following Sunday all the mestizos, even the thinnest, had large