five mil reis the arroba;[1] it was hard to lay one's hands on a fool of the dimensions required. Attracted by clever advertisements, some buyers found their way to Espigão, but turned up their noses, swearing at the useless journey and making no offer.
"It would be dear as a gift!" they would murmur to themselves.
Moreira's cow-lick, after repeated scratching, yielded a mystifying plan: to place along the edge of the thickets and one or other openings accessible to visitors, plants of good standard woods, transplanted from the neighboring forests. The lunatic did so and even more: stuck into a hollow a tree of Pau d'aiho, imported from São Paulo's rich red soil and fertilized the coffee plants on the edge of the path just enough to conceal the poverty of the rest. Wherever the sun's rays disclosed more clearly the poorness of the soil, there the hallucinated old man covered it over with rich sifted earth. …
One day he received a letter from his business agent announcing a new buyer. "Handle your man carefully," he advised, "know how to work the game and you have him. His name is Pedro Trancoso, very wealthy, very young, very loquacious, and he wants a fazenda for pleasure. It all depends upon tricking him with the ability of a cunning dealer.
Moreira prepared himself for the task. In the first place he warned the laborers to be on their guard, careful in what they should
- ↑ I. e. About 25 cents per 32 pounds.
