The man went back into the store, shrugging his square shoulders and paying no attention to the complaint of Balatong. Balatong insisted, squalling at the door in an aggressive attitude, "Aren't you goin' to take 'way the puppet from t'at counter?"
"_E ko visa_," muttered the clerk in his native dialect as he was dusting the chairs in the store.
Presently Busyong and Islao, who all this while had been mute spectators of the fray, came out of the saloon with a view to settle the dispute peacefully and justly, for, after all, they pitied Balatong, who, they thought, had got now into an inextricable strait. Islao, who could speak a little the peculiar dialect of the clerk, addressed the clerk confidentially in his own tongue, asking him what was the matter. The man answered in the same language which Busyong understood thus: "Why, this friend orders me to remove the puppet from that counter; for he says that he is not pleased with it."
"Well, well, is that the whole cause of this fuss?" asked Busyong, smiling.
Meanwhile Balatong was setting forth to Islao earnestly all his complaint with many, many studied complicated movements of both hands and body. Islao waited for him to finish stuttering, for he wanted to talk with him. Then, suspecting from the tone of his voice a smack of Kamkangan blood in Balatong, Islao thought it best to feign comradeship for the sake of persuading him to behave in a more manly way. So, when Balatong had finished jabbering, Islao addressed him in the most friendly manner, saying laconically, "_Abe, e ka makisankut ketang é mo balú._[2]"
Upon hearing these words, which he at first pretended not to have understood, Balatong suddenly became excited and perplexed. He gnashed his widely separated teeth, clenched his fists, and looked up into Islao's face with fiery eyes, saying, "Why d'you insult an' curse me? If I ha-have done wron', show me how; an' if not, _qua de causa_?"
Busyong and Islao smiled pityingly and ironically instead of being offended. On the other hand, bursting into a peal of laughter, the juvenile clerk said jocosely in a sort of Kamkanga dialect the following: "Aroo, our _abe_ is an evangelical man--fine!--nay, he is a priest. How was it?--_qua re cosa_--ha, ha, ha."