|
|
Cornugaya Directory 09
Page 07
People say that with money you can do anything you like in the world. I
had at that time on my person some L6,000 sterling, of which L4,000 was
in actual cash. If anybody had placed before me a morsel of any food I
would gladly have given the entire sum to have it. But no, indeed; no
such luck! How many times during those days did I vividly dream of
delightful dinner and supper parties at the Savoy, the Carlton, or the
Ritz, in London, Paris, and New York! How many times did I think of the
delicious meals I had had when a boy in the home of my dear father and
mother! I could reconstruct in my imagination all those meals, and
thought what an idiot I was to have come there out of my own free will to
suffer like that. My own dreams were constantly interrupted by Benedicto
and Filippe, who also had similar dreams of the wonderful meals they had
had in their own houses, and the wonderful ways in which their
_feijaozinho_--a term of endearment used by them for their beloved
beans--had been cooked at home by their sweethearts or their temporary
wives.
As we had now been four entire days without eating anything at all, I
thought it was high time to open the valuable tin of anchovies--the only
one in our possession. We had a terrible disappointment when I opened the
tin. I had purchased it in S. Manoel from Mr. Barretto. To our great
distress we discovered that instead of food it contained merely some salt
and a piece of slate. This was a great blow to us. The box was a
Brazilian counterfeit of a tin of anchovies. How disheartening to
discover the fraud at so inopportune a moment! I had reserved the tin
until the last as I did not like the look of it from the outside. We kept
the salt--which was of the coarsest description.
|
