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?©, 1861-1896

"The Social Cancer"

"Out with you! A
Franciscan, one of my Order, Fray What-do-you-call-him Savalls, [25]
invented it in the--ah the seventh century!"
"A Franciscan? Well, he must have been a missionary in China, that
Padre Savalls," replied the lady, who did not thus easily part from
her beliefs.
"Schwartz,[26] perhaps you mean, senora," said Fray Sibyla, without
looking at her.
"I don't know. Fray Damaso said a Franciscan and I was only repeating."
"Well, Savalls or Chevas, what does it matter? The difference of
a letter doesn't make him a Chinaman," replied the Franciscan in
bad humor.
"And in the fourteenth century, not the seventh," added the Dominican
in a tone of correction, as if to mortify the pride of the other friar.
"Well, neither does a century more or less make him a Dominican."
"Don't get angry, your Reverence," admonished Padre Sibyla,
smiling. "So much the better that he did invent it so as to save his
brethren the trouble."
"And did you say, Padre Sibyla, that it was in the fourteenth
century?" asked Dona Victorina with great interest.


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