Page 149 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

‘And I have sat alone at night with my revolver in the
Company’s warehouse time and again by the side of that
other Englishman’s heap of silver, guarding it as though it
had been my own.’
Viola seemed lost in thought. ‘It is a great thing for me,’
he repeated again, as if to himself.
‘It is,’ agreed the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores,
calmly. ‘Listen, Vecchio—go in and bring me, out a cigar,
but don’t look for it in my room. There’s nothing there.’
Viola stepped into the cafe and came out directly, still
absorbed in his idea, and tendered him a cigar, mumbling
thoughtfully in his moustache, ‘Children growing up—and
girls, too! Girls!’ He sighed and fell silent.
‘What, only one?’ remarked Nostromo, looking down
with a sort of comic inquisitiveness at the unconscious old
man. ‘No matter,’ he added, with lofty negligence; ‘one is
enough till another is wanted.’
He lit it and let the match drop from his passive fingers.
Giorgio Viola looked up, and said abruptly—
‘My son would have been just such a fine young man as
you, Gian’ Battista, if he had lived.’
‘What? Your son? But you are right, padrone. If he had
been like me he would have been a man.’
He turned his horse slowly, and paced on between the
booths, checking the mare almost to a standstill now and
then for children, for the groups of people from the distant
Campo, who stared after him with admiration. The Com-
pany’s lightermen saluted him from afar; and the greatly
envied Capataz de Cargadores advanced, amongst mur-

1 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard