04-008 [Misc.]
1877
From: Eduardo de Lete
To: Jose Rizal
Four pesos – A volume of poems – A book by Jules Verne.
* * *
[Date? 1887?]
MR. JOSE RIZAL
ESTEEMED RIZAL,
This has no other object but to ask you a favor that I have no doubt you will grant me.
As you already know, in the college one cannot keep money and I do not ask my guardian for you know already what he is. I ask you to do me the favor of giving me P4 before Sunday. When you give it on a day when you have your topography class, give it to Enrique before or after the class, as it suits you, placed in an envelope because I do not want Enrique to know about my affairs. It seems to me that it will not cost you very much to grant me this favor.
I have appealed to you because I have no confidence in other boys, and it seemed to me better to appeal to you who have never denied me any favor that I have asked you.
With nothing for now, you know I esteem you. Command at your pleasure your friend,
EDUARDO LETE[1]
P.S.
I will return soon your book of poems that I have, but I should like to copy some compositions. I will give you the second volume of Jules Verne when I finish Los Hijos del Capitan Grant that I lack.
The Same
Please do not let Catigbac,[2] who lives in the same house, know about this because as you already know he is not very friendly with me and I don’t want any trouble with him.
[1] Lete was a classmate of Rizal at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and brother of Enrique Lete, also a friend of Rizal. Later, in Spain, he added “de” to his name.
[2] Mariano Catigbac (also spelled Katigbak), friend of Rizal and of Miss Segunda Catigbac, a fellow student of Rizal’s at the Colegio de la Concordia, or Colegio de la Immaculada Concepcion, at Sta. Ana, a district of Manila.