Three weeks passed by. Marie had gone down town late in April to do some shopping. While she was standing in the door of the old postoffice on the Escolta, she heard the shrill voice of a Filipino lad piping out: “Papers! Papers! All about the war with the United States. Dewey’s comin’!” He had a bundle of newspapers under his right arm and was waving one in his left hand. Everybody rushed out of the bazaars and offices along the Escolta where they were transacting their business, and each one who could get near enough to the boy, eagerly bought a morning paper.

The lad’s papers were all gone but one. Marie Sampalit snatched it from his hands, and dropped into one of them a small coin. She stepped into the corridor of the post office, to escape the annoyance of the crowd, and read the large head lines: