The Tribulations of a Chinese — El Filibusterismo

That same Saturday evening Quiroga, the Chinese merchant who wants a consulate, feeds friars, clerks, soldiers, and rivals in rooms above his Escolta bazaar. He supplies conventos, cashes employees' chits, and watches every guest like a mandarin afraid of theft, yet he knows Gonzalez attacks Chinese immigration in print as Pitilí, Don Timoteo Pelaez curses Chinese competition, and lottery grumblers still drink his champagne while toasting consul and justice. Simoun, already fed, tells complaining merchants to study how other nations prosper and then do as they do, then shrugs when they ask why Spain's colonies stall on port works and taxes.

Rizal widens the frame with gossip Simoun is said to favour using Chinese taxpayers to humble natives, illustrated by a church-seating war among gobernadorcillos that ends when the General orders everyone to sit like shopkeepers because the Chinese pay most, cavalry outside and tight trousers making the humiliation visible. Quiroga greets Simoun with bows until the jeweler asks whether the diamond bracelets suited her; the Chinaman collapses into ruin because a powerful man's friend kept all three pieces worth thousands each though he meant her to choose one.

Simoun laughs, offers to collect what officers owe, and trades a small debt cut for a large favour: rifle boxes arriving that evening must hide in Quiroga's warehouse so staged searches can fill prisons and both men profit freeing the accused. Quiroga, who flinches at an empty revolver in his desk, accepts when Simoun threatens to need the nine thousand pesos instead. Back in the sala, champagne loosens cruelty and absurdity: a commission of four officers may study soldier footwear while ladies ask why Indians need shoes if they march barefoot at home, and Ben-Zayb duel-mirrors with Padre Camorra over Leeds' sphinx until Simoun proposes the friars visit the show themselves.

Ben-Zayb promises Leeds a private viewing so journalistic honour will not ruin the American's mirror business, and about a dozen carriages roll toward Quiapo Plaza. Rizal stacks credit, ridicule, and smuggling in one house: the man called ruined is the colony's ledger. When Simoun turns unpaid bracelets into hidden rifles, who is still pretending the dinner was only about equality?