Quotation from: Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Written by: Joseph Conrad


Since he had heard the name of Montero pronounced, young Scarfe had been
eager to express his simple feelings. In a loud and youthful tone he
hoped that this Montero was going to be licked once for all and done
with. There was no saying what would happen to the railway if the
revolution got the upper hand. Perhaps it would have to be abandoned.
It would not be the first railway gone to pot in Costaguana. "You know,
it's one of their so-called national things," he ran on, wrinkling
up his nose as if the word had a suspicious flavour to his profound
experience of South American affairs. And, of course, he chatted with
animation, it had been such an immense piece of luck for him at his
age to get appointed on the staff "of a big thing like that--don't you
know." It would give him the pull over a lot of chaps all through life,
he asserted. "Therefore--down with Montero! Mrs. Gould." His artless
grin disappeared slowly before the unanimous gravity of the faces turned
upon him from the carriage; only that "old chap," Don Jose, presenting a
motionless, waxy profile, stared straight on as if deaf. Scarfe did not
know the Avellanos very well. They did not give balls, and Antonia never
appeared at a ground-floor window, as some other young ladies used to do
attended by elder women, to chat with the caballeros on horseback in
the Calle. The stares of these creoles did not matter much; but what on
earth had come to Mrs. Gould? She said, "Go on, Ignacio," and gave him
a slow inclination of the head. He heard a short laugh from that
round-faced, Frenchified fellow. He coloured up to the eyes, and stared
at Giorgio Viola, who had fallen back with the children, hat in hand.

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