In the meantime Balatong stopped in front of a dry goods store on the opposite sidewalk and began to ruminate on his image as reflected in the glass of a counter, and at times twitched his scrawny body. Busyong and Islao were observing him. After a while a clerk of the store opened the door of the counter and turned a button on the back of a puppet, which hereto had been unnoticed by Balatong. Soon the dainty hands of the puppet, which were raised in front of its small breast, began to move back and forth, especially the delicate fingers, as if the whole figure had come to life. Balatong looked at the doll rather pleased at first. But when he noticed the remarkable similarity of all the clothes of the puppet with his own clothes, he began to be aroused and to feel offended, insomuch that he could not help going into the store to complain. He approached the man who had made the hands of the puppet move and called him to come outside. The man, who thought that he was going to show something on the counter which he wished to buy, followed him obediently. They stuttered in their native tongue, which ran thus in English:
"I think that that puppet is intended to offend me, because it is dressed exactly in the same way as I am; that is, with the same clothes, necktie, and hat, which I bought from this very store some time ago. However, you have willfully—made—the—pup—pup—pup—pet—move its hands in such a way as that—pointing to himself and then to me—that is as much as to say I am a puppet," said Balatong, who began to be angry with the man, who was laughing candidly.
The man went back into the store, shrugging his square shoulders and paying no attention to the complaint of Balatong. Balatong insisted, squalling at the door in an aggressive attitude, "Aren't you goin' to take 'way the puppet from t'at counter?"
"E ko visa," muttered the clerk in his native dialect as he was dusting the chairs in the store.
Presently Busyong and Islao, who all this while had been mute spectators of the fray, came out of the saloon with a view to settle the dispute peacefully and justly, for, after all, they pitied Balatong, who, they thought, had got now into an inextricable strait. Islao, who could speak a little the peculiar dialect of the clerk, addressed the clerk confidentially in his own tongue, asking him what was the matter. The man answered in the same language which Busyong understood thus: "Why, this friend orders me to remove the puppet from that counter; for he says that he is not pleased with it."
"Well, well, is that the whole cause of this fuss?" asked Busyong, smiling.
Meanwhile Balatong was setting forth to Islao earnestly all his complaint with many, many studied complicated movements of both hands and body. Islao waited for him to finish stuttering, for he wanted to talk with him. Then, suspecting from the tone of his voice a smack of Kamkangan blood in Balatong, Islao thought it best to feign comradeship for the sake of persuading him to behave in a more manly way. So, when Balatong had finished jabbering, Islao addressed him in the most friendly manner, saying laconically, "Abe, e ka makisankut ketang é mo balú.[2]"
Upon hearing these words, which he at first pretended not to have understood, Balatong suddenly became excited and perplexed. He gnashed his widely separated teeth, clenched his fists, and looked up into Islao's face with fiery eyes, saying, "Why d'you insult an' curse me? If I ha-have done wron', show me how; an' if not, qua de causa?"
Busyong and Islao smiled pityingly and ironically instead of being offended. On the other hand, bursting into a peal of laughter, the juvenile clerk said jocosely in a sort of Kamkanga dialect the following: "Aroo, our abe is an evangelical man—fine!—nay, he is a priest. How was it?—qua re cosa—ha, ha, ha."
Balatong became the more angry with the clerk inasmuch as he saw that the clerk was poking fun at him.