Busyong and Islao suddenly burst into prolonged laughter, while the rest remained silent drivelling with wide-opened mouths as they beheld the two men laughing heartily. "Do you see! This friend is angry with me according to the tone of his voice. What did he say?" asked the fat man turning towards Busyong and Islao. Islao nudged Busyong to get him to come out of the store. "Come, come, let us go home, lest we hurt with our laughing their susceptible feelings, especially of that young dandy--pardon me, I mean doctor," said Islao aside to Busyong when they reached the corner of a street and turned to the left. "O Momus, son of Mox!" exclaimed Busyong smiling after a short time, "how jocund indeed must you be with the people here!" "Surely, he must be," said Islao. "By the way, I remember that the tailor--that is, the fat man--seemed to boast a political party." "Oh, yes!" "What is that party?" "It is called the National Talukap Party. You know, this country is a democracy in name, but an oligarchy in fact, as the people here say, for the government is in the hands of only a very few of the native countrymen; most of the power is in foreign hands. So the _Talukap_ party aims to reverse the condition of things; nay, to have the control of the government wholly in the hands of the people of this country. I am warmly in favor of this policy. But what I do find objectionable in this Talukap party is their affectation and tautology, and their pretension and empty show in their outward conduct. For my part, I believe in doing things silently but effectively. On the other hand, I am not in favor of the other party, which is called the National Kinagisnan Party, whose policy is to be contented slavishly with the present condition of things or with whatever condition for the time being. The people who belong to this Kinagisnan party are very few in comparison with those that belong to the Talukap party. Being in very close contact with the sovereign, the Kinagisnan people are very apt to become flatterers." "Moreover, the ideal of your Talukap party, I think, becomes less feasible, if not impossible, when you consider these dandies like those two chums over there who are clasping one another by the waist. Indeed, they live in a very peculiar world by themselves." "And with Momus, I suppose, as their Supreme Being." "Ha, yes, I should think so, too. But after all they are not to be blamed. Everything goes step by step. Even my native country in the planet Earth has had the same defects practically as these people here. Now I am glad that there in my native land the people, especially the young men, have reached, by education and the bitter lesson of experience, of course, a stage where their old views of the world have become greatly changed, most especially in this respect: now they hate affectation under any form whatever, whether in dress, manners, knowledge or in deeds." "Why, that is a condition to be envied greatly."