Placido went along with the crowd.
"Penitente, Penitente!" called a student with a certain mysterious air.

"Sign this!" "What is it ?" "Never mind--sign it!" It seemed to Placido that some one was twitching his ears.

He recalled the story of a cabeza de barangay in his town who, for having signed a document that he did not understand, was kept a prisoner for months and months, and came near to deportation.

An uncle of Placido's, in order to fix the lesson in his memory, had given him a severe ear-pulling, so that always whenever he heard signatures spoken of, his ears reproduced the sensation.
"Excuse me, but I can't sign anything without first understanding what it's about." "What a fool you are! If two _celestial carbineers_ have signed it, what have you to fear ?" The name of _celestial carbineers_ inspired confidence, being, as it was, a sacred company created to aid God in the warfare against the evil spirit and to prevent the smuggling of heretical contraband into the markets of the New Zion.

[27] Placido was about to sign to make an end of it, because he was in a hurry,--already his classmates were reciting the _O Thoma_,--but again his ears twitched, so he said, "After the class! I want to read it first." "It's very long, don't you see?
It concerns the presentation of a counter-petition, or rather, a protest.