Page 59 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

CHAPTER SIX

T THAT time Nostromo had been already long enough
Ain the country to raise to the highest pitch Captain
Mitchell’s opinion of the extraordinary value of his discov-
ery. Clearly he was one of those invaluable subordinates
whom to possess is a legitimate cause of boasting. Captain
Mitchell plumed himself upon his eye for men—but he
was not selfish—and in the innocence of his pride was al-
ready developing that mania for ‘lending you my Capataz
de Cargadores’ which was to bring Nostromo into personal
contact, sooner or later, with every European in Sulaco, as
a sort of universal factotum—a prodigy of efficiency in his
own sphere of life.
‘The fellow is devoted to me, body and soul!’ Captain
Mitchell was given to affirm; and though nobody, perhaps,
could have explained why it should be so, it was impossible
on a survey of their relation to throw doubt on that state-
ment, unless, indeed, one were a bitter, eccentric character
like Dr. Monygham—for instance—whose short, hopeless
laugh expressed somehow an immense mistrust of man-
kind. Not that Dr. Monygham was a prodigal either of
laughter or of words. He was bitterly taciturn when at his
best. At his worst people feared the open scornfulness of his
tongue. Only Mrs. Gould could keep his unbelief in men’s
motives within due bounds; but even to her (on an occasion

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard