Page 112 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

tercourse was to strike as offensively independent.
Charles Gould assumed that if the appearance of listen-
ing to deplorable balderdash must form part of the price he
had to pay for being left unmolested, the obligation of ut-
tering balderdash personally was by no means included in
the bargain. He drew the line there. To these provincial au-
tocrats, before whom the peaceable population of all classes
had been accustomed to tremble, the reserve of that Eng-
lish-looking engineer caused an uneasiness which swung
to and fro between cringing and truculence. Gradually all
of them discovered that, no matter what party was in power,
that man remained in most effective touch with the higher
authorities in Sta. Marta.
This was a fact, and it accounted perfectly for the Goulds
being by no means so wealthy as the engineer-in-chief on
the new railway could legitimately suppose. Following the
advice of Don Jose Avellanos, who was a man of good coun-
sel (though rendered timid by his horrible experiences of
Guzman Bento’s time), Charles Gould had kept clear of the
capital; but in the current gossip of the foreign residents
there he was known (with a good deal of seriousness un-
derlying the irony) by the nickname of ‘King of Sulaco.’ An
advocate of the Costaguana Bar, a man of reputed ability
and good character, member of the distinguished Moraga
family possessing extensive estates in the Sulaco Valley, was
pointed out to strangers, with a shade of mystery and re-
spect, as the agent of the San Tome mine—‘political, you
know.’ He was tall, black-whiskered, and discreet. It was
known that he had easy access to ministers, and that the nu-

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