There had been a great deal of rain, and the roads were very deep in mud, but the sky had cleared, and a bright moon was shining.
In spite of this natural illumination, there was a reckless profusion of arc-lights in the streets, which, as I told you, had been in black gloom for months. We had seen the lamps being repaired for some days when we went out in the evenings, and the general furbishing-up and improvement extended to a sudden serving out of ice from the Government factory, so that everyone was wishing there could be one of these Visitations to Iloilo every week. Well, when we got to the De la Ramos house, we found all the front really extremely pretty, with huge stars-and-stripes flags—stripes the size of palm-trunks and stars like soup-plates—draped right across the front, with green palm-branches stuck about, all in the light of brilliant illuminations. Great doors stood open to a vast lighted and decorated hall, with a very big cut-glass chandelier in the middle.
The poco bueno horse was pulled up on his haunches abruptly in front of all this magnificence, and some white men leaning against the doorway picking their teeth, looked at us, but offered no remark. So C——, in evening dress, got out and asked one of them if this was the house where the reception was to take place. One man, keeping his toothpick in his mouth, said:
“Waal I guess there is naht going to be any great shakes of a reception to-night.”
“Oh,” said C——, “we got an invitation from the Reception Committee, and heard the Manchuria had come in.”
“That’s so, sirree,” said the man, “but Secretary Taft and Miss Alice is not coming ashore; leastways, they’re on board now eating their dinners.”
“Will they go to the theatre, then?” we asked.
“No,” said the man vaguely, “I guess naht. Leastways, I don’t rightly know. But Secretary Taft says he don’t want to come ashore before his skeddled time to-morrow morning. I reckon he’s gettin’ a bit sick of goin’ around.”
The man was quite civil, but he and his fellow-loungers were so vague and depressing that we drove away again, feeling rather sorry we had taken the trouble to put on evening dress.