“And how!” Hal exclaimed with a wry smile. “They don’t teach anything else but. They’re stunters on a large scale, and if you can’t learn about planes from them, you’ll never learn. But why all these questions about what I learned from the Bellairs, huh? Are you really afraid I might get into a tight place with an expert like this Rodriguez is supposed to be?”
“Well, strangers, you know, Hal ... methods are varied among airmen, aren’t they? Oh, I know you’re laughing up your sleeve. Now’s your chance to poke fun at me about hunches, eh? Well, I won’t give in to it, then. You go ahead. We’ll have luncheon, then I’ll ride with you in the car that Señor Goncalves has so generously sent for. The mansion of His Excellency, the interventor, is half-way toward the field, I’ve been given to understand.”
“You going there this afternoon, Unk? Why, I thought Goncalves was going to write that letter and fix it for you to go there tomorrow?”
“No, he changed all that when I saw him in his room just a while ago. He told me he had already telephoned the interventor, explaining my want of guides and an interpreter, and His Excellency, being terribly busy with the affairs of State, requested Señor Goncalves to arrange those matters himself.”
“In other words, the interventor doesn’t want to be bothered with you, huh, Unk? He wants the Brazil-nut to do the work.”
“So the dapper Señor told me in his inimitable way. But the fly in the ointment is this—Goncalves doesn’t know that it is the duty of the interventor to see me, neither does he know that it is of paramount importance for me to see His Excellency regarding Renan and Ceara before I leave Manaos. His Excellency apparently didn’t understand who the American Señor was whom Goncalves was trying to tell him about. They assured me when I left Rio that the interventor here would be notified of my coming. So I’m going this afternoon and no one is to be enlightened as to my whereabouts—no one! Understand, Hal?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Hal laughed. “Go to it, Unk.”
“Most assuredly I will. I’ve got to see His Excellency about getting Federal aid. Do you know, Hal, I had the feeling when I was talking with Goncalves in his room that he wasn’t any too anxious for me to see the interventor! His attitude ... I don’t know ... perhaps, I imagined that too. Come on, let’s wash up and get down to luncheon before I hatch up some more hunches to worry about.”
“Unk,” Hal laughed, “you’re a chip off the young block and I don’t mean maybe.”