The Judge did think over it and the apostolic nuncio kept from his presence several days in order to give him opportunity to ponder the subject. When next the two men met the chastened attitude of Judge Daft and his evident desire to be agreeable was to the discerning Jesuit ample proof that the leaven was working.
“I do not know,” he added to himself, “but that the fine, bold material we are getting on our side may necessitate the removal of the good-hearted old man who rules but fears to move. We dare not wait too long when plans are ripe and boldness is necessary.”
XVI.
THE SCHISM BURIED.
A few mornings after this the apostolic nuncio was walking along the calzada by the coast, musing over his plans, when he chanced upon three American soldiers with a Filipino prisoner. He was inclined to pass on with only a cursory glance, but his ever-alert mind, always spurred to observation, prompted to closer scrutiny. Then he saw that the soldiers were drunk. This was not important in his eye, because, under the canteen system inaugurated by the American government, and the influence of the tropics working on the nerves of the boys so far from home, and of the Filipino beverage, vino, drinking was rather common with the soldiers. Indeed, the tropics were playing havoc with the morals of the youth in khaki.
Kipling has thus expressed the languorous feeling that gets into the bones in the tropics:
Ship me somewhere east of Suez where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments, an a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin’ an’ it’s there that I would be—