to
which flesh is heir are banished by a certain marvelous drug of which I
am the happy possessor. Have you boils, fever, gangrene, distemper? Do
you sneeze, palpitate, or feel pain in sinciput or occiput, tibia,
diaphragm or appendix? Are you subject to measles, dropsy, pyromania, or
falling arch?"

Joao Gomez had opened one eye far enough to envisage the eloquent
intruder and to locate his broom.

"_Va-se'mbora_!" quoth Joao, and we were eager so to do, for the broom
was the ancient kind made of switches, and it stung....

"Note the error in style," said Angus Jones with a slight frown. "My
context is too sauced and savored. I must mend it. A crisper brevity
serves our need with such simple people."

At the bazaar where Martinho Agostinho Sousa sold stamps, liquors,
basketware, and curios of many sorts to the marauding tourist we
reconnoitered.

"I like the name," declared Angus Jones. "There is a wistful dampness
about it. That Agostinho, now. What piquant promise! And Sousa--if
pronounced in the simplest manner. Can this be an omen?"

Martinho was within and welcomed us with purrings and graceful gestures.

"Good morning," said Angus Jones. "I see you deal in many things fine
and rare. I have here an article which I am forced to sell for a shade
of its value. You can make a thousand per cent profit from the first
collector. Give me a dollar and call it square."...

He opened a thin wallet and laid on the counter a faded internal-revenue
stamp such as seals a packet of tobacco in a happier land. Martinho
looked at it and from it to Angus Jones, and his suavity departed from
him.

"What t' Sam Hill you take me for? And me that run a gin mill in
Lawrence, Mass.! Do I look like a fall guy?... Beat it, you long-legged
hobo! On your way!"

Thus he pursued us with rude outcry, but at the end lapsed and blew us
along with a final vernacular blast: "_Va-se'mbora_!"

We arrived with speed at the Praca da Constituicao, the main square.
Angus Jones was somewhat winded but unsubdued.

"How could I know a wretched exile had returned to contaminate the soil
with foreign vulgarity?" he inquired. "Give me a native institution."

Then with an evil humor I pointed out to him the Golden Gate, hospitably
open to all vagrant airs that stirred among the plane trees.

"That is the social heart and center of Funchal," I told him, quite
truly.

* * * * *

The hairy and muscular proprietor