Page 233 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

men called away to attend the urgent necessities of political
revolutions. The practical, mercantile soul of Senor Hirsch
rebelled against all that foolishness, while he was taking a
respectful but disconcerted leave of the might and majesty
of the San Tome mine in the person of Charles Gould. He
could not restrain a heart-broken murmur, wrung out of
his very aching heart, as it were.
‘It is a great, great foolishness, Don Carlos, all this. The
price of hides in Hamburg is gone up—up. Of course the Ri-
bierist Government will do away with all that—when it gets
established firmly. Meantime—‘
He sighed.
‘Yes, meantime,’ repeated Charles Gould, inscrutably.
The other shrugged his shoulders. But he was not ready
to go yet. There was a little matter he would like to men-
tion very much if permitted. It appeared he had some good
friends in Hamburg (he murmured the name of the firm)
who were very anxious to do business, in dynamite, he ex-
plained. A contract for dynamite with the San Tome mine,
and then, perhaps, later on, other mines, which were sure
to—The little man from Esmeralda was ready to enlarge,
but Charles interrupted him. It seemed as though the pa-
tience of the Senor Administrador was giving way at last.
‘Senor Hirsch,’ he said, ‘I have enough dynamite stored
up at the mountain to send it down crashing into the val-
ley’—his voice rose a little—‘to send half Sulaco into the air
if I liked.’
Charles Gould smiled at the round, startled eyes of the
dealer in hides, who was murmuring hastily, ‘Just so. Just

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard