"Your eyes, señor capitan, are very bad.
If they are to be healed soon, they ought not
to be left a minute."

"Would you mind making a short stay
with me?"

"I consent, on condition that you let me
pay you for my board and lodging."

"Do as you will," replied Don Juan; "the
thing is settled at once. Send for your luggage."

Doctor Pablo's canvas trousers had been
thrown aside as too ragged to be worth
preserving, and his whole luggage was the little
white waistcoat packed up in his hat, and his
hat was all the box he had. He adopted,
the straightforward course, which is at all
times the sensible and right course; he told
the captain the plain truth about himself, and
that his lodging could be paid for only out of
his earnings, say from month to month. The
captain was on his part delighted. "If you
are poor," he said, "it will be the making of
you to cure me. You are sure to do your best."

Doctor Pablo and the captain got on very
well together. An examination of the eyes
next morning showed that the right eye
was not only lost, but enveloped in a mass of
cancerous disease that would ere long have
destroyed the patient's life. Of the other eye
there was still hope. "Your right eye," the
doctor said, "and all this growth about it has
to be removed by an operation, or you
must die." The operation was undergone.
The wounds healed, the flesh became sound,
and, after about six weeks, the use of the left
eye was recovered. During this time Doctor
Pablo met with a few other patients; so, at
the end of the first month, he was able to
pay punctually for his board and lodging.

The captain was cured, but nobody knew
that, for he still refused to stir out of doors.
"I won't go out," he said, "to be called
Captain One-eye. You must get me a glass
eye from France before I'll stir abroad."

"But that will make a delay of eighteen months."

"You must wait eighteen months, then,
before you get the credit of my cure. Worry
me, and I'll keep my shutters closed, and
make people believe that I can't bear the
light, and am as bad as ever."

If Captain Juan Porras would but show
himself, then Doctor Pablo's fortune would be
made. Was Doctor Pablo to wait eighteen
months, until a false eye could be received
from France? Certainly not. He would turn
mechanician, and get up an eye at Manilla
under his own superintendence. He did so,
and the captain (though it did not feel as
if it were a clever fit) found it not
unsatisfactory. He put on spectacles, looked at
himself in the glass, and consented to go out.

But what, somebody may ask, is all this
story about? Is it true? I only know that
it is all seriously vouched for, by the person
chiefly concerned: to wit, the doctor himself.
Monsieur Alexandre Dumas having
included the adventures of Monsieur de la
Gironière in a romance of "A Thousand
and One Phantoms." Monsieur de la Gironière
considered that it was time for him to
tell the naked truth concerning
himself and his adventures. This he now
does in a little book called Twenty Years
in the Philippines; of which, as we
understand from a notice prefixed by the author,
an English translation is to appear, or
perhaps by this time has appeared.

The return of Don Juan caused a great
sensation in Manilla. Every one talked
of Señor Don Pablo, the great French
physician. Patients came from all parts; and,
young as he was, he leaped from indigence
to opulence. He kept a carriage and four,
but still lodged in the captain's house.

At that time it happened that a young
American friend pointed out to him a lady
dressed in deep mourning, who was occasionally
to be seen upon the promenades—one of
the most beautiful women in the town. She
was the Marchioness of Salinas, eighteen or
nineteen years old, and already a widow.
Doctor Pablo fell in love.

Vain attempts were made to meet this
charming señora in private, circles; but she
was not to be seen within doors anywhere. One
morning an Indian came to fetch the French
physician to a boy, his master. He drove to
the house indicated—one of the best in the
suburb of Santa Cruz—saw the patient, and
was writing a prescription in the sick room,
when he heard the rustle of a dress behind
him, turned his head and saw the lady of his
dreams. He dropped his pen and began
talking incoherently; she smiled, asked
what he thought of her nephew, and went
away. This made Doctor Pablo, very
diligent in his attendance on the boy; and six
months afterwards Madame de las Salinas
—Anna—was his wife. She had a fortune of
thirty thousand pounds, expected daily in
galleons from Mexico.

One evening while they were at tea, news
came that the galleons were in the offing.
Husband and wife had agreed that when this
money came, they would retire to France.
Don Pablo had then a splendid practice at
Manilla, and held several official situations,
kept two carriages and eight horses;
also a fine table, at which all Europeans
were welcome guests. It was not ruin,
therefore, when the tidings came next day
that his wife's money was lost! It had been
seized on its way through Mexico by Colonel
Yturbide, and paid to the credit of the
independent cause, in a civil war then and there in
progress. The only difference to Doctor Pablo
was, that he could not quit the Philippines.

Among other situations Doctor Pablo held
the post of surgeon-major to the first light
battalion of the line, and was a warm friend
to its captain, Novales. Novales one night
revolted, the regiment began an insurrection,
and the surgeon-major rushed out at three
o'clock in the morning, not exactly knowing