"Twenty years, no one can deny, are more than sufficient to get acquainted with a town. San Diego has a population of six thousand souls and I knew every inhabitant as well as if I had been his mother and wet-nurse. I knew in which foot this one was lame, where the shoe pinched that one, who was courting that girl, what affairs she had had and with whom, who was the real father of the child, and so on--for I was the confessor of every last one, and they took care not to fail in their duty. Our host, Santiago, will tell you whether I am speaking the truth, for he has a lot of land there and that was where we first became friends. Well then, you may see what the Indian is: when I left I was escorted by only a few old women and some of the tertiary brethren--and that after I had been there twenty years!" "But I don't see what that has to do with the abolition of the tobacco monopoly," [21] ventured the rubicund youth, taking advantage of the Franciscan's pausing to drink a glass of sherry. Fray Damaso was so greatly surprised that he nearly let his glass fall. He remained for a moment staring fixedly at the young man. "What? How's that?" he was finally able to exclaim in great wonderment. "Is it possible that you don't see it as clear as day? Don't you see, my son, that all this proves plainly that the reforms of the ministers are irrational?" It was now the youth's turn to look perplexed. The lieutenant wrinkled his eyebrows a little more and the small man nodded toward Fray Damaso equivocally. The Dominican contented himself with almost turning his back on the whole group. "Do you really believe so?" the young man at length asked with great seriousness, as he looked at the friar with curiosity. "Do I believe so? As I believe the Gospel! The Indian is so indolent!" "Ah, pardon me for interrupting you," said the young man, lowering his voice and drawing his chair a little closer, "but you have said something that awakens all my interest. Does this indolence actually, naturally, exist among the natives or is there some truth in what a foreign traveler says: that with this indolence we excuse our own, as well as our backwardness and our colonial system. He referred to other colonies whose inhabitants belong to the same race--" "Bah, jealousy! Ask Señor Laruja, who also knows this country. Ask him if there is any equal to the ignorance and indolence of the Indian." "It's true," affirmed the little man, who was referred to as Señor Laruja. "In no part of the world can you find any one more indolent than the Indian, in no part of the world." "Nor more vicious, nor more ungrateful!" "Nor more unmannerly!" The rubicund youth began to glance about nervously. "Gentlemen," he whispered, "I believe that we are in the house of an Indian. Those young ladies--"