Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

so.’ And now he was going. It was impossible to do businessin explosives with an Administrador so well provided andso discouraging. He had suffered agonies in the saddle andhad exposed himself to the atrocities of the bandit Hernandezfor nothing at all. Neither hides nor dynamite—and thevery shoulders of the enterprising Israelite expressed dejection.At the door he bowed low to the engineer-in-chief.But at the bottom of the stairs in the patio he stopped short,with his podgy hand over his lips in an attitude of meditativeastonishment.‘What does he want to keep so much dynamite for?’ hemuttered. ‘And why does he talk like this to me?’The engineer-in-chief, looking in at the door of the emptysala, whence the political tide had ebbed out to the lastinsignificant drop, nodded familiarly to the master of thehouse, standing motionless like a tall beacon amongst thedeserted shoals of furniture.‘Good-night, I am going. Got my bike downstairs. Therailway will know where to go for dynamite should we getshort at any time. We have done cutting and chopping for awhile now. We shall begin soon to blast our way through.’‘Don’t come to me,’ said Charles Gould, with perfect serenity.‘I shan’t have an ounce to spare for anybody. Not anounce. Not for my own brother, if I had a brother, and hewere the engineer-in-chief of the most promising railwayin the world.’‘What’s that?’ asked the engineer-in-chief, with equanimity.‘Unkindness?’‘No,’ said Charles Gould, stolidly. ‘Policy.’