"It's extremely kind of you to take so much interest in me," Max returned, "and of course I agree. I should be foolish if I did not. But where and how am I to find you in the event of my being compelled to accept your offer?"
"That is easily arranged. I will give you my address before I leave the vessel." Then he added, with pardonable vanity, "It is scarcely necessary, however; I believe I am fairly well known in Rio."
Next day he handed Max his card, on which his name and address was set forth with many flourishes.
"At least," said Max to himself as he stowed it away in a safe place, "there is something here to fall back upon."
To disembark in a strange port, particularly a foreign one, is, to the thinking man, invariably an interesting experience. The difference in architecture, in costume, in language, and in custom, attracts the attention and, if one may employ the expression in such a case, titillates the senses, like the first taste of a rare wine to which one has yet to grow accustomed.
Of all the cities of South America, Rio de Janeiro is, perhaps, the most cosmopolitan, the most representative, and at the same time the most contradictory. It is up to date, yet in many things it is sadly behind the times; it is beautiful in some respects, yet indescribably hideous in others; taken altogether it is a human abode full of bizarre contrasts, that step out and confront one at every turn. Generous and hospitable in certain directions, it is cruel and treacherous, almost to the borders of fanaticism, in others. To the right one sees a desire to copy Europe, to the left what would appear to be a deliberate attempt to disregard her altogether. It is these little idiosyncrasies that make Rio de Janeiro what it is, namely, one of the most instructive and fascinating cities in the world.