RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
season." It was a very special event to all the members of the Commission and their families, because not one of us had ever been invited to the Palace before.
There was much discussion of the serious subject as to what the civil government officials should wear at the New Year's reception and, if gossip can be relied upon, it came very near causing several family riots. The men naturally inclined toward the comfort of their white linens, but they were overcome by argument and it was eventually decreed that they should present themselves in frock coats and silk hats. This may sound reasonable, but it wasn't. It was intensely funny, however, and that helped some. A silk hat which has reposed in a box throughout a rainy season in the Philippines is a curious object. It is not the glossy, well turned and dignified article which a silk hat should be. Its rim is warped, its nap is dulled and roughed beyond repair; it is very sticky, and it has an odour all its own. In Judge Ide's hat some mice had made a nest and had eaten a small hole through its one-time shiny crown, but it was the only one he had and, as silk hats are not carried in Philippine shops, he had, perforce, to wear it.
My husband communed with himself during the process of getting into his heavy frock coat with all its stiff and its woollen accessories,—for the first time in seven months and in the bright white heat of a tropic morning,—but we were finally ready and on the way, in our diminutive Victoria behind the prancing black stallion ponies of uncertain disposition.
When we arrived at Malacañan, quite early as we thought, we found ourselves in a long block of carriages which moved up slowly and, one by one, discharged their occupants under the porte-cochère of the Palace. Considerations of rank and precedence had escaped our minds for the moment and this was evidently a very important matter. However, we found a capable staff of military aides who knew just where
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