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

profits in the endowment of churches. That’s a sort of idolatry.He told me he endowed churches every year, Charley.’‘No end of them,’ said Mr. Gould, marvelling inwardly atthe mobility of her physiognomy. ‘All over the country. He’sfamous for that sort of munificence.’ ‘Oh, he didn’t boast,’Mrs. Gould declared, scrupulously. ‘I believe he’s really agood man, but so stupid! A poor Chulo who offers a littlesilver arm or leg to thank his god for a cure is as rationaland more touching.’‘He’s at the head of immense silver and iron interests,’Charles Gould observed.‘Ah, yes! The religion of silver and iron. He’s a very civilman, though he looked awfully solemn when he first sawthe Madonna on the staircase, who’s only wood and paint;but he said nothing to me. My dear Charley, I heard thosemen talk among themselves. Can it be that they really wishto become, for an immense consideration, drawers of waterand hewers of wood to all the countries and nations of theearth?’‘A man must work to some end,’ Charles Gould said,vaguely.Mrs. Gould, frowning, surveyed him from head to foot.With his riding breeches, leather leggings (an article of apparelnever before seen in Costaguana), a Norfolk coat ofgrey flannel, and those great flaming moustaches, he suggestedan officer of cavalry turned gentleman farmer. Thiscombination was gratifying to Mrs. Gould’s tastes. ‘Howthin the poor boy is!’ she thought. ‘He overworks himself.’But there was no denying that his fine-drawn, keen red