Nostromo : A Tale of the Seaboard
he would not have made the conquest of all the populace of the town. No, no; I am not absurd. I may have given a wrong name to some strong sentiment for him on her part—to an unreasonable and simple attitude a woman is apt to take up emotionally towards a man. She used to abuse him to me frequently, which, of course, is not inconsistent with my idea. Not at all. It looked to me as if she were always thinking of him. He was something important in her life. You know I have seen a lot of those people. Whenever I came down from the mine Mrs. Gould used to ask me to keep my eye on them. She likes Italians; she has lived a long time in Italy, I believe, and she took a special fancy to that old Garibaldino. A remarkable chap enough. A rugged and dreamy character living in the republicanism of his young days as if in a cloud. He has encouraged much of the capataz's confounded nonsense—the high-strung, exalted old beggar."
"What sort of nonsense?" wondered the chief engineer. "I found the capataz always a very shrewd and sensible fellow, absolutely fearless, and remarkably useful. A perfect handy man. Sir John was greatly impressed by his resourcefulness and attention when he made that overland journey from Sta. Marta. Later on, as you might have heard, he rendered us a service by disclosing to the then chief of police the presence in the town of some professional thieves who came from a distance to wreck and rob our monthly pay-train. He has certainly organized the lighterage service of the harbor for the O.S.N. Company with great ability. He knows how to make himself obeyed, foreigner though he is. It is true that the cargadores
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