t had all the prestige in the sight of the laborers, the warehouse ants that swarmed around there in an incessant movement

 The coffee trade was swimming in gold. Small houses stormed to peak positions; there was a perennial rumor of money all over the café district. And the gold tide was still rising with the great abundance of the floods that threaten flooding.

The price of coffee had reached a height it had never reached before. It was a delirium of work for all those warehouses in S. Bento.

In Francisco Theodoro's, the movement was enormous.

Seu Joaquim did not stop for a minute, in an incessant back-and-forth, performing miracles of activity, observing, harvesting, directing, ordering, fast in his work, very confident in his predictions and in his orders. He knew everything, guessed everything, without anyone seeing him extract a confidence or a denunciation from his friends or his subordinates. It was in him that the soul of that big house on Rua de S. Bento seemed incarnate, because it was his name that walked from mouth to mouth, in the air, from the truck, at the street door, to the back, the Pateo dos ensaccadores, where the coffee shovels, falling in rhythm, gave the work an accompaniment of music.

Seu Joaquim, small, with his bold air, could, from one moment to the next, put an end to all that vertiginous gyro, set up strikes , paralyze life, close the door to the money that wanted to enter.

It had all the prestige in the sight of the laborers, the warehouse ants that swarmed around there in an incessant movement.

Francisco Theodoro rested in it, let him act, “he knew his pulse”, he said; hadn't he done the same at the beginning of his career? Now, well established in life, he was aristocratizing himself, giving himself the air of a great character.

There was a time when the manager would go up to the boss's office for some clarification, and in those short minutes, stolen from the activity below, Seu Joaquim found a way to expose the situation of the day, give the requested notes and still talk about the movement of the big houses nearby, making a glance, in a comparative picture, the highlight of Francisco Theodoro's warehouse.

And, in those simple sayings, there was between the two men as if a little flame, glowing dizzily, a spark of ambition driven by events of their own and others.

Both loved the house, both wanted to see it on the higher plane.

Seu Joaquim, there with me, attributed the prosperity of the business to his expert and positive management. In his view, the people at the office were inept and did not contribute anything to the success of the business.

He considered himself a predominant, indispensable figure, and therefore used impertinence, which Theodoro tolerated, at a discount for the service.

When the manager went down the stairs to the office and returned to the warehouse, Francisco Theodoro leaned back in his chair and thought. In the next room, the servants' feathers creaked on the books and the noise of the turning pages was sometimes the only one heard.

In that great peace of conquered fortune, Francisco Theodoro then dreamed of long journeys, long periods of abstraction.

The tiredness came to him.

However, if he reflected on that, he retreated, with the certainty that days without that mess of work would be unbearable, far from that charged atmosphere and the so many concerns of his commerce. This indecisive desire, which his tired body and spirit so justly demanded, was now mixed with a nascent fever, which incited him to new ventures and which he fought with courage and judgment.

Oh! if Mario were a man, if he had the flair and courage for that life... with what satisfaction would he sit him in his place and show him the path already made, easy to follow!

His desire to have a child had been well punished, not for the sake of the child, but for the pride of continuing that house, which would carry his name to other generations. The son had come and turned his back on fortune.

The house would pass into strange hands, or she would have to die with him...

It was what it was hard for him to leave the best work of his life, in which he had concentrated so many sacrifices, dreamed up in his times of stumbling through the streets, and then executed in pieces, in the effort of an energetic will, if people paid for it, as something, and change its name.

How well that sounded—Casa Theodoro—a golden rhythm!

In that street, with its rich houses, it would have been the richest, if Gama Torres had not stepped forward, helped by the hand of the devil, that God's only helps men with long work and beautiful examples.

What had given Torres his fortune? The game. It was now known throughout the city that he played the stock market like a madman. The result there was—magnificent; but couldn't it have been bad?

Certainly, he concluded with himself, “that is not what is called being a good trader; by chance, no more, no less...

It was time for coffee. The first to enter that day was Lemos. The meats weighed heavily on him; he sat down soon.

—So how's it going, Seu Theodoro, huh?

“Well… a lot of work.

“It's what you want. I don't stop either. But do you want to know who really goes from strength to strength? The Innocent; The thief has a sure hand; don't miss the shot! I saw him today make big transactions with the biggest phlegm. Money doesn't scald your hands. He comes there; I left him downstairs talking to a guy. It's a branded finial.

“You're an expert, yeah.

A few minutes later, Innocencio Braga entered, bustling and happy, in the company of Negreiros, who had gone upstairs to attend to some business, and while he was entertaining Theodoro, Innocencio said, turning to Lemos:

—Today is for me one of the happiest days of my life! Imagine that I received a letter from my attorney, saying that a farm in my village was already mine, and that I had wanted since I was a little boy...

— Wheat lands?

-That's not it. The property will only provide expenses. I bought it for revenge. The owner was one of those old gentlemen, of rare specimens. For a stupid question mistreated my father. I was small, but I didn't forget the offense. The days passed; the nobleman was ruined, and my old man's son earned enough to make him sign, even if on a cross, the deeds that entitle him to the possession of his farm. My father has already installed himself in the palace; the devil is that, by the way, he doesn't get used to idleness and goes to the fields to weed the linen with the servants... it doesn't matter, he's the owner.

"Actually, it was an act of filial love, very dignified..." murmured Lemos, blowing his nose loudly.

Isidoro came in with the coffee and the conversation spread.

—So, Mr. Theodoro, is it true that Joaquim is interested in you?

-IT IS...

—It's good. You didn't look Portuguese, man; you looked english!

-Why?

“For not wanting partners. A house like this could make a lot of people rich. Look, it's a mistake to want everything for yourself.

Yes, thought Francisco Theodoro, life is short, and a well dug with so much effort is only fair to provide plenty of water for many thirsts...

Isidoro was already picking up his cups when João Ramos came in, puffing from the heat. He asked for everyone's health news and even before he heard the answers, he leaked how much he knew about the business. He came from Lessa's house, which had made extraordinary profits from a coffee speculation. He would also be involved in great undertakings; she took out paperwork that filled her pockets and represented many contos de réis.

Innocencio Braga was mentioning the names of poor people who had become millionaires with the rise, when Joao Ramos interrupted him, asking his friends whether he should accept the presidency of a bank. She hesitated...

Innocencio advised him to accede. The position was prestigious. Then the effervescent game time had passed. Transactions were now made with more security. He also had a big project in the pipeline...

Theodoro was suffocating; he heard nothing else. His neighbor on the left and his neighbor on the right passed, fabulous amounts of pounds for Europe, won at the chance of the moment. And she?

His reflections took a sad turn. She had worked so hard, to finally achieve what others acquired with a gesture!

Little by little, his more circumspect friends threw themselves into the vortex of the Stock Exchange. Lucky, as if an invisible hand were guiding them, they almost always won. He alone had resisted, firm in his principles of morality and economy. But the contagion of fever manifested itself in the first shivers of temptation.

Francisco Theodoro reflected...

When the friends left, he walked mechanically to the window.

He looked: below, the old black woman was hurriedly sweeping the sidewalk, gathering the coffee from the street. Porters were coming out of the door, bent under the weight of the sacks. The wagons passed with great clatter, rattling irons, and a thick rumble of voices rose in the thick air, thickened with dust.

It was work, which went by, hot and breathless.

From that effort would come the redemption of the people. It is with sweat and tears that the best fields are fertilized.

It is from the hoe, which fatigues the arm and tears the breast from the clay, that the good of humanity derives, the water that quenches thirst and the tree that gives shade and dissolves into flowers.

Blessed are those who do not weaken and can, at the end of their lives, raise their heads high without a splash of vice. These will not have waded in the deceptive flood, they will say to their children:

“Look at my life and do as I did.

That's what Francisco Theodoro thought, wanting to cling to his old faith, which he feared would collapse now, shaken by the wind of those crazy days.