Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
torted the acclamations of the populace. The women of that class especially seemed positively fascinated by the long drooping nose, the peaked chin, the heavy lower lip, the black silk eye-patch and band slanting rakishly over the forehead. His high rank always procured an audience of caballeros for his sporting stories, which he detailed very well, with a simple grave enjoyment. As to the society of ladies, it was irksome by the restraints it imposed without any equivalent, as far as he could see. He had not, perhaps, spoken three times on the whole to Mrs. Gould since he had taken up his high command; but he had observed her frequently riding with the Señor Administrador, and had pronounced that there was more sense in her little bridle-hand than in all the female heads in Sulaco. His impulse had been to be very civil on parting to a woman who did not wobble in the saddle and happened to be the wife of a personality very important to a man always short of money. He even pushed his attentions so far as to desire the aide-de-camp at his side (a thick-set, short captain with a Tartar physiognomy) to bring along a corporal with a file of men in front of the carriage, lest the crowd in its backward surges should "incommode the mules of the señora." Then, turning to the small knot of silent Europeans looking on within earshot, he raised his voice protectingly:
"Señores, have no apprehension. Go on quietly making your ferrocarril—your railways, your telegraphs, your— There's enough wealth in Costaguana to pay for everything—or else you would not be here. Ha! ha! Don't mind this little picardia of my friend Montero. In a little while you shall be-
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