“Since your honors have been so kind and complaisant toward my humble self as to grant me the right of speech before all others here present, I shall profit by this permission, so generously accorded, and I shall speak. I imagine in my imagination that I find myself in the midst of the very venerable Roman senate—senatus populusque Romanus, as we said in those good old times which, unhappily for humanity, will never come back,—and I will ask the patres conscripti—as the sage Cicero would say if he were in my place—I would ask them, since time presses, and time is golden as Solomon says, that in this important matter each one give his opinion clearly, briefly, and simply. I have done.”
And satisfied with himself and with the attention of the house the orator sat down, not without directing toward his friends a look which plainly said: “Ha! Did I speak well? Ha!”
“Now the floor belongs to any one who—hem!” said the gobernadorcillo, without being able to finish his sentence.
To judge by the general silence, no one wished to be one of the patres conscripti. Don Filipo profited thereby and rose.
The Conservatives looked at one another with significant nods and gestures.
“Señores, I will present my project for the fête,” he began.
“We cannot accept it!” said an uncompromising Conservative.
“We vote against it!” cried another adversary.
Don Filipo could not repress a smile.
“We have a budget of 3,500 pesos. With this sum we can assure a fête that will surpass any we have yet seen in our own province or in others.”