Page 98 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

lip is what you’ll want; and you could bluff a little on the
strength of your backing. Not too much, though. We will go
with you as long as the thing runs straight. But we won’t be
drawn into any large trouble. This is the experiment which
I am willing to make. There is some risk, and we will take it;
but if you can’t keep up your end, we will stand our loss, of
course, and then—we’ll let the thing go. This mine can wait;
it has been shut up before, as you know. You must under-
stand that under no circumstances will we consent to throw
good money after bad.’
Thus the great personage had spoken then, in his own
private office, in a great city where other men (very consid-
erable in the eyes of a vain populace) waited with alacrity
upon a wave of his hand. And rather more than a year later,
during his unexpected appearance in Sulaco, he had em-
phasized his uncompromising attitude with a freedom of
sincerity permitted to his wealth and influence. He did
this with the less reserve, perhaps, because the inspection
of what had been done, and more still the way in which
successive steps had been taken, had impressed him with
the conviction that Charles Gould was perfectly capable of
keeping up his end.
‘This young fellow,’ he thought to himself, ‘may yet be-
come a power in the land.’
This thought flattered him, for hitherto the only account
of this young man he could give to his intimates was—
‘My brother-in-law met him in one of these one-horse
old German towns, near some mines, and sent him on to
me with a letter. He’s one of the Costaguana Goulds, pure-