So we reclined in the shade together, Angus Jones and I, and conversed in the liberal fashion of our calling.
"I am newly come from over yon." He hooked a thumb toward the mountains that wall the almost unknown North Coast. "The cheese from ewes is sustaining but monotonous. The people are of an incredible simplicity. They talk pure Portuguese of the fourteenth century, and they count on their fingers."
"You should have stayed there," I made answer. "The people here are sophisticated by tourists and poverty. Also cheese is superior to cactus fruit, and from sugar cane one turns at last with loathing."
"Do you work for it?"
I was long since lost to shame. I confessed how I ballyhooed at the door of an embroidery shop whenever a ship loosed English passengers for a two-hour visit.
"Not good enough," decided Angus Jones. "Though, mark you, I should never admit a town of this size to be as barren as you say. Still I am fed up with Madeira. I am disappointed in Madeira. Is it believable, after my stay of a month, I have yet to meet the famous wine of the name on its native heath?"
"Quite, since it does not exist. You could have met only an inferior imported Malaga with a fake label."
"Can such things be?" asked Jones, with an expression of pain.
"Oh, it's all a fraud. Like the coasters from the Monte that have to be shoved, and the embroidery, which is cheaper in Paris, and the beggars, who are the only wealthy citizens by escaping the taxes."
He considered.