Calmiden, whose office was in the entresuelo, stuck his crest against the grated bars of the window and stared in stupefaction.
Julie, bareheaded in the sun, her face reflecting unnameable emotions towered aloft in the heart of the avalanche.
“Dear, dear! What’s happening?” Calmiden demanded.
“Women! Oceans of ’em, overturning history! We want to see the Major.”
“For heaven’s sake, don’t overturn anything here! He won’t have it. Tell them to go home, and you stay and talk to me, you exalted green-eyed person.”
“Calmiden!” roared the incensed Major from the upper regions. Clearly he had perceived the onslaught from his window, to which the worsted Mike had valiantly climbed for assistance. “What do you mean by letting all those women past the door?”
Calmiden looked at Julie in comic despair. “Does he expect me to wrestle individually with the feminine population of the island? What are you all up to anyhow?”
“Tell them,” yelled the Major, “that I refuse absolutely to see them.”
But the dogged remnant who had not yet succeeded in getting inside the building merely continued to push. Masses of agitated women driving up the stairs and sweeping along with them in their advance a wondering lieutenant, an indignant sergeant-major, two native clerks and an interpreter! A flood of women inundating the furniture and bearing down on one solitary figure that still withstood them. The Major, in impregnable dignity, sat fast in his chair in rigid military fashion while the excited Mike, picking up everything he could find, fired it upon the advance. Women fundamentally annoyed the Major, and to have all the women in the world surrounding him in an unescapable embrace was too dreadful to sustain. He sat like Pharaoh in the midst of the visitation of the plagues, sputtering under his breath.
The routed office force stood helpless, while the room rang with the classic wail of “Los Macabebes! Los Macabebes!”