In the best room available at the best hotel I could scarcely turn around without barking my shins, and the window opened so directly on the sidewalk that the shoulder of every passer-by seemed to jostle me. The weather was volatile as a Brazilian, with heavy downpours for ten minutes alternating with ten minutes of sunshine. I waded down into the valley through wide streets reeking in blood-red mud and up to the “Theatro São Carlos,” the manager-owner of which I at length unearthed, in spite of the prevarications of his negro servants. As usual he was one of the pillars of the town, of that aristocratic flimsiness of the man who has never done any real work for generations back, and his air said plainly that he knew he could outwit any simpleton of a foreigner. I set my first demands high, therefore, in order to give him the satisfaction of feeling that he had driven a close bargain when he at length agreed to as much as I had expected and ten per cent. more than I would have accepted under compulsion. I got his name signed to duplicate contracts while he was still under the influence of my hypnotic eye and was giving him instructions, in the guise of information, on advertising and the arrangement of programs, when he remarked casually:
“Of course Edison himself comes with the show? Our people will be as anxious to see him as to get acquainted with his new invention, of which I have heard such splendid reports.”
“Why—er—it may be that he will not be able to get here,” I stammered. “You see, he has several little things on hand; besides, he is a married man and—and——”
How excellent my Portuguese and my winning salesman manner had become was proved by the fact that in the end I did not have to abrogate the contract for two days at the “Theatro São Carlos.”
At a suburban cinema of São Paulo the colored youth charged with the advertising painted his own portrait of Edison. He may be made out leaning affectionately on the right shoulder of his masterpiece
The central praça of Campinas
Catalão and the plains of Goyaz, from the ruined church above the town