Page:Brazilian short stories.djvu/58

 "Seventy-five!" and waited standing for the storm to burst.

Trancoso, however, found the price reasonable.

"Well, it is not expensive, the price is more moderate than I expected."

The old man bit his lips and tried to retract.

"Seventy-five, yes, but … not including the cattle! …"

"That's fair," answered Trancoso.

"… also not including the pigs!"

"Exactly."

"… and the furniture!”

"Naturally."

The planter choked; there was nothing more to exclude; he confessed to himself that he was an ass. Why had he not said eighty right off?

The wife informed of the case, called him a fool.

"But, woman, at forty it was already a good business!"

"For eighty it would have been doubly good. Don't excuse yourself. I never saw a Moreira who was not slow and stupid. It's in the blood. You are not to blame."

They sulked for a while but the eagerness to build air-castles with the unexpected pile of money swept the cloud far away.

Zico took advantage of the favorable occasion to insist upon the three contos for setting up the business and was promised them.

Dona Izaura no longer wanted the little cottage. Now she remembered a larger one on a street where processions passed—Eusebio Leite's house.