s quite the reverse. Husbands and wives, the
jolly barber knew them well, and he knew they would give him a better
reception.

Behold, then, Fragoso on the road, coming up the shady lane beneath the
ficuses, and arriving in the central square of Tabatinga!

As soon as he set foot in the place the famous barber was signaled,
recognized, surrounded. Fragoso had no big box, nor drum, nor cornet
to attract the attention of his clients--not even a carriage of shining
copper, with resplendent lamps and ornamented glass panels, nor a huge
parasol, no anything whatever to impress the public, as they generally
have at fairs. No; but Fragoso had his cup and ball, and how that cup
and ball were manipulated between his fingers! With what address did he
receive the turtle's head, which did for the ball, on the pointed end
of the stick! With what grace did he make the ball describe some learned
curve of which mathematicians have not yet calculated the value--even
those who have determined the wondrous curve of "the dog who follows his
master!"

Every native was there--men, women, the old and the young, in their
nearly primitive costume, looking on with all their eyes, listening with
all their ears. The smiling entertainer, half in Portuguese, half in
Ticunian, favored them with his customary oration in a tone of the
most rollicking good humor. What he said was what is said by all the
charlatans who place their services at the public disposal, whether
they be Spanish Figaros or French perruqiers. At the bottom the
same self-possession, the same knowledge of human weakness, the same
description of threadbare witticisms, the same amusing dexterity, and,
on the part of the natives, the same wide-mouth astonishment, the same
curiosity, the same credulity as the simple folk of the civilized world.

It followed, then, that ten minutes later the public were completely
won, and crowded round Fragoso, who was installed in a _"loja"_ of the
place, a sort of serving-bar to the inn.

The _loja_ belonged to a Brazilian settled at Tabatinga. There, for a
few vatems, which are the sols of the country, and worth about twenty
reis, or half a dozen centimes each, the natives could get drinks of the
crudest, and particularly assai, a liquor half-sold, half-liquid,
made of the fruit of the palm-tree, and drunk from a _"coui"_ or
half-calabash in general use in this district of the Amazon.

And then men and women, with equal eagerness, took their pl