Let me tell you about the fans. My Aunt Jennie Black was a fan
fan--the kind that folded up--and the art was to fold and unfold
them gracefully. Remember? In a way, cigarettes are to our coeds
what fans were to Aunt Jennie and her era. Well, don't think Dom
Pedro's queen and women folk weren't in there fanning hard with
their fans, and long, long before Aunt Jennie and hers. A room
the size of Crawley's pool room was full of them in glass cases.
Hundreds, yes almost thousands of them: Wood, bone, ivory,
tortoise shell, amber and whatever else that could be made into
fans. Delicate filigree, gold, silver, mother of pearl, inlay of
superb workmanship and so fine it should be magnified to show it
is really hand work. Yes, they had fans in Dom's day, and just as
many as Brooklyn has now.
And away back behind was a small cubby hole room where Dom and
his Senators, or Cabinet, or advisers, or whatever it was he had,
met and considered matters of state. Then Dom, after being duly
advised, would go out and make his own laws. Up home you had Huey
Long and some others I mustn't name out loud do about the same
thing, so you see, we are pretty much . . .
BRIGHTENING PROSPECTS
Two full days in Rio is hardly enough to get much idea of a
foreign city of a million and a half to two million in
population.
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