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

a votre bonhomme—entendez-vous?—qu’il faut avaler lapilule.’After such a warning there was nothing for it but to signand pay. Mr. Gould had swallowed the pill, and it was asthough it had been compounded of some subtle poison thatacted directly on his brain. He became at once mine-ridden,and as he was well read in light literature it took to hismind the form of the Old Man of the Sea fastened uponhis shoulders. He also began to dream of vampires. Mr.Gould exaggerated to himself the disadvantages of his newposition, because he viewed it emotionally. His position inCostaguana was no worse than before. But man is a desperatelyconservative creature, and the extravagant novelty ofthis outrage upon his purse distressed his sensibilities. Everybodyaround him was being robbed by the grotesque andmurderous bands that played their game of governmentsand revolutions after the death of Guzman Bento. His experiencehad taught him that, however short the plundermight fall of their legitimate expectations, no gang in possessionof the Presidential Palace would be so incompetentas to suffer itself to be baffled by the want of a pretext. Thefirst casual colonel of the barefooted army of scarecrowsthat came along was able to expose with force and precisionto any mere civilian his titles to a sum of 10,000 dollars;the while his hope would be immutably fixed upon a gratuity,at any rate, of no less than a thousand. Mr. Gould knewthat very well, and, armed with resignation, had waited forbetter times. But to be robbed under the forms of legalityand business was intolerable to his imagination. Mr. Gould,