By this time the Maestro was ready to go to bed, and long in the torpor of the tropic night there came to him, above the hum of the mosquitoes fighting at the net, the soft, wailing croon of Isidro, back at his "Goo-oo-oo nigh-igh-igh loidies-ies-ies." These were days of ease and beauty to the Maestro, and he enjoyed them the more when a new problem came to give action to his resourceful brain. The thing was: For three days there had not been one funeral in Balangilang. In other climes, in other towns, this might have been a source of congratulation, perhaps, but not in Balangilang. There were rumours of cholera in the towns to the north, and the Maestro, as President of the Board of Health, was on the watch for it. Five deaths a day, experience had taught him, was the healthy average for the town; and this sudden cessation of public burials--he could not believe that dying had stopped--was something to make him suspicious. It was over this puzzling situation that he was pondering at the morning recess, when his attention was taken from it by a singular scene. The "batas" of the school were flocking and pushing and jolting at the door of the basement, which served as stable for the municipal carabao. Elbowing his way to the spot, the Maestro found Isidro at the entrance, gravely taking up an admission of five shells from those who would enter. Business seemed to be brisk; Isidro had already a big bandana handkerchief bulging with the receipts, which were now overflowing into a great tao hat, obligingly loaned him by one of his admirers, as one by one those lucky enough to have the price filed in, feverish curiosity upon their faces. The Maestro thought it might be well to go in also, which he did without paying admission. The disappointed gatekeeper followed him. The Maestro found himself before a little pink-and-blue tissue-paper box, frilled with rosettes. "What have you in there?" asked the Maestro. "My brother," answered Isidro, sweetly. He cast his eyes to the ground and watched his big toe drawing vague figures in the earth, then, appealing to the First Assistant, who was present by this time, he added, in the tone of virtue which _will_ be modest: "Maestro Pablo does not like it when I do not come to school on account of a funeral, so I brought him [pointing to the little box] with me." "Well, I'll be----," was the only comment the Maestro found adequate at the moment. "It is my little pickaninny brother," went on Isidro, becoming alive to the fact that he was a centre of interest; "and he died last night of the great sickness." "The great what?" ejaculated the Maestro, who had caught a few words. "The great sickness," explained the Assistant. "That is the name by which these ignorant people call the cholera." For the next two hours the Maestro was very busy.