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

inaccessible to profane eyes. Some scornful young men,insignificant pieces of minor machinery in that eleven-storey-highworkshop of great affairs, expressed frankly theirprivate opinion that the great chief had done at last somethingsilly, and was ashamed of his folly; others, elderly andinsignificant, but full of romantic reverence for the businessthat had devoured their best years, used to mutterdarkly and knowingly that this was a portentous sign; thatthe Holroyd connection meant by-and-by to get hold of thewhole Republic of Costaguana, lock, stock, and barrel. But,in fact, the hobby theory was the right one. It interested thegreat man to attend personally to the San Tome mine; itinterested him so much that he allowed this hobby to givea direction to the first complete holiday he had taken forquite a startling number of years. He was not running agreat enterprise there; no mere railway board or industrialcorporation. He was running a man! A success would havepleased him very much on refreshingly novel grounds; but,on the other side of the same feeling, it was incumbent uponhim to cast it off utterly at the first sign of failure. A manmay be thrown off. The papers had unfortunately trumpetedall over the land his journey to Costaguana. If he waspleased at the way Charles Gould was going on, he infusedan added grimness into his assurances of support. Even atthe very last interview, half an hour or so before he rolledout of the patio, hat in hand, behind Mrs. Gould’s whitemules, he had said in Charles’s room—‘You go ahead in your own way, and I shall know how tohelp you as long as you hold your own. But you may rest as-