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Denholm appear ed unfazed by Le?Ap?s candid r evelation
?Smoke and fog, Lucky. Tell me...Do you believe the stor ies? You have been
ther e. Do you believe in the ghosts of the Black Casino??
?I believe in ever ything, Denholm. In the village, they say that w hen a per son is
close to death a black cr ow w ill cir cle the house for days on end. Its ter r ible cr ies
her ald death?s appr oach. Per sonally, I think per haps they ar e looking for r ats to eat.
Mostly at the moment Mr Denholm, I believe in good business and making us each
some money. If ther e ar e ghosts, let them haunt. I believe tour ists may like w hat
char acter they may br ing. I cer tainly don?t believe in the ghosts of super stitious
tales. When I have been up the mountain and visited, I saw nothing untowar d that
a few good builder s and few of your for eign dollar s could not make r ight. Pover ty
and war have taken a gr eat deal fr om us, Denholm. Many year s ago, a ver y
w ell-educated Gr eek said that the fir st casualty of war is the tr uth. I sometimes
think he was w r ong; per haps it is education that suffer s fir st. The lack of education
allow s tr uth to become a flexible, inconsistent thing, held in the hands of those
pr ivileged enough to maintain life, an education of their ow n and to w r ite their
ow n tr uths for other s. My countr y and this r egion have had few such luxur ies in
r egar d to education.?
Denholm leaned back to listen to the law yer. He was not an unsympathetic man,
nor an uneducated one. He knew w ell the void that war left behind among people
w hose talents and exper ience mer ited positions of gover nance or instr uction. Her e
at the time of war and ter r or , anyone w ho had ventur ed fr om far m to school had
been among the fir st to die, so that a new r egime may be bor n unclutter ed by the
cor r uptions of education. He listened closely to the w or ds of a man w ho had clear ly
managed to navigate a path thr ough such deadly obstacles. The value of his
par ticular w or ds must ther efor e have been evident to many men far mor e
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