"Are you trying to deafen us, you heretic ?" cried Aunt Isabel.
"Madam," replied the offender gravely, "I once heard of a poor trumpeter on the banks of the Rhine who, by playing on his trumpet, won in marriage a rich and noble maiden." "That's right, the trumpeter of Sackingen!" exclaimed Ibarra, unable to resist taking part in the renewed merriment.
"Do you hear that ?" went on Albino.

"Now I want to see if I can't have the same luck." So saying, he began to blow with even more force into the resounding horn, holding it close to the ears of the girls who looked saddest.

As might be expected, a small tumult arose and the mothers finally reduced him to silence by beating him with their slippers [71] and pinching him.
"My, oh my!" he complained as he felt of his smarting arms, "what a distance there is between the Philippines and the banks of the Rhine! _O tempora! O mores!_ Some are given honors and others sanbenitos!" All laughed at this, even the grave Victoria, while Sinang, she of the smiling eyes, whispered to Maria Clara, "Happy girl! I, too, would sing if I could!" Andeng at length announced that the soup was ready to receive its guests, so the young fisherman climbed up into the pen placed at the narrower end of the corral, over which might be written for the fishes, were they able to read and understand Italian, "_Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' entrante_," [72] for no fish that gets in there is ever released except by death.

This division of the corral encloses a circular space so arranged that a man can stand on a platform in the upper part and draw the fish out with a small net.
"I shouldn't get tired fishing there with a pole and line," commented Sinang, trembling with pleasant anticipation.
All were now watching and some even began to believe that they saw the fishes wriggling about in the net and showing their glittering scales.

But when the youth lowered his net not a fish leaped up.
"It must be full," whispered Albino, "for it has been over five days now since it was visited." The fisherman drew in his net, but not even a single little fish adorned it.