EL FILIBUSTERISMO

XX. THE ARBITER

CHAPTER XX

THE ARBITER

True it was that Padre Irene had said: the question of the academy of

Castilian, so long before broached, was on the road to a solution. Don

Custodio, the active Don Custodio, the most active of all the arbiters

in the world, according to Ben-Zayb, was occupied with it, spending

his days reading the petition and falling asleep without reaching any

decision, waking on the following day to repeat the same performance,

dropping off to sleep again, and so on continuously.

How the good man labored, the most active of all the arbiters

in the world! He wished to get out of the predicament by pleasing

everybody--the friars, the high official, the Countess, Padre Irene,

and his own liberal principles. He had consulted with Señor Pasta, and

Señor Pasta had left him stupefied and confused, after advising him to

do a million contradictory and impossible things. He had consulted with

Pepay the dancing girl, and Pepay, who had no idea what he was talking

about, executed a pirouette and asked him for twenty-five pesos to

bury an aunt of hers who had suddenly died for the fifth time, or the

fifth aunt who had suddenly died, according to fuller explanations, at

the same time requesting that he get a cousin of hers who could read,

write, and play the violin, a job as assistant on the public works--all

things that were far from inspiring Don Custodio with any saving idea.

Two days after the events in the Quiapo fair, Don Custodio was as

usual busily studying the petition, without hitting upon the happy

solution. While he yawns, coughs, smokes, and thinks about Pepay's

legs and her pirouettes, let us give some account of this exalted

personage, in order to understand Padre Sibyla's reason for proposing

him as the arbiter of such a vexatious matter and why the other clique

accepted him.

Don Custodio de Salazar y Sanchez de Monteredondo, often referred

to as _Good Authority_, belonged to that class of Manila society

which cannot take a step without having the newspapers heap titles

upon them, calling each _indedefatigable, distinguished, zealous,

active, profound, intelligent, well-informed, influential_, and so

on, as if they feared that he might be confused with some idle and

ignorant possessor of the same name. Besides, no harm resulted from

it, and the watchful censor was not disturbed. The _Good Authority_

resulted from his friendship with Ben-Zayb, when the latter, in his two

noisiest controversies, which he carried on for weeks and months in the

columns of the newspapers about whether it was proper to wear a high