aces on the
barber's stool. The scissors of Fragoso had little to do, for it was not
a question of cutting these wealthy heads of hair, nearly all remarkable
for their softness and their quality, but the use to which he could
put his comb and the tongs, which were kept warming in the corner in a
brasier.

And then the encouragements of the artist to the crowd!

"Look here! look here!" said he; "how will that do, my friends--if you
don't sleep on the top of it! There you are, for a twelvemonth! and
these are the latest novelties from Belem and Rio de Janeiro! The
queen's maids of honor are not more cleverly decked out; and observe, I
am not stingy with the pomade!"

No, he was not stingy with it. True, it was only a little grease, with
which he had mixed some of the juices of a few flowers, but he plastered
it on like cement!

And as to the names of the capillary edifices--for the monuments reared
by the hands of Fragoso were of every order of architecture--buckles,
rings, clubs, tresses, crimpings, rolls, corkscrews, curls, everything
found there a place. Nothing false; no towers, no chignons, no shams!
These head were not enfeebled by cuttings nor thinned by fallings-off,
but were forests in all their native virginity! Fragoso, however, was
not above adding a few natural flowers, two or three long fish-bones,
and some fine bone or copper ornaments, which were brought him by the
dandies of the district. Assuredly, the exquisites of the Directory
would have envied the arrangement of these high-art coiffures, three and
four stories high, and the great Leonard himself would have bowed before
his transatlantic rival.

And then the vatems, the handfuls of reis--the only coins for which the
natives of the Amazon exchange their goods--which rained into the
pocket of Fragoso, and which he collected with evident satisfaction. But
assuredly night would come before he could satisfy the demands of
the customers, who were so constantly renewed. It was not only the
population of Tabatinga which crowded to the door of the loja. The news
of the arrival of Fragoso was not slow to get abroad; natives came to
him from all sides: Ticunas from the left bank of the river, Mayorunas
from the right bank, as well as those who live on the Cajuru and those
who come from the villages of the Javary.

A long array of anxious ones formed itself in the square. The happy ones
coming from the hands of Fragoso went proudly from one house to anothe