ly trusted."

"He took a slightly different view," the doctor said. "I heard him
declare in this very room that it would be the most desperate affair of
his life. He made a sort of verbal will here in my hearing, appointing
old Viola his executor; and, by Jove! do you know, he--he's not grown
rich by his fidelity to you good people of the railway and the harbour.
I suppose he obtains some--how do you say that?--some spiritual value
for his labours, or else I don't know why the devil he should be
faithful to you, Gould, Mitchell, or anybody else. He knows this country
well. He knows, for instance, that Gamacho, the Deputy from Javira, has
been nothing else but a 'tramposo' of the commonest sort, a petty pedlar
of the Campo, till he managed to get enough goods on credit from Anzani
to open a little store in the wilds, and got himself elected by the
drunken mozos that hang about the Estancias and the poorest sort of
rancheros who were in his debt. And Gamacho, who to-morrow will be
probably one of our high officials, is a stranger, too--an Isleno.
He might have been a Cargador on the O. S. N. wharf had he not (the
posadero of Rincon is ready to swear it) murdered a pedlar in the woods
and stolen his pack to begin life on. And do you think that Gamacho,
then, would have ever become a hero with the democracy of this place,
like our Capataz? Of course not. He isn't half the man. No; decidedly, I
think that Nostromo is a fool."

The doctor's talk was distasteful to the builder of railways. "It is
impossible to argue that point," he said, philosophically. "Each man has
his gifts. You should have heard Gamacho haranguing his friends in the
street. He has a howling voice, and he shouted like mad, lifting his
clenched fist right above his head, and throwing his body half out
of the window. At every pause the rabble below yelled, 'Down with the
Oligarchs! Viva la Libertad!' Fuentes inside looked extremely miserable.
You know, he is the brother of Jorge Fuentes, who has been Minister of
the Interior for six months or so, some few years back. Of course, he
has no conscience; but he is a man of birth and education--at one time
the director of the Customs of Cayta. That idiot-brute Gamacho fastened
himself upon him with his following of the lowest rabble. His sickly
fear of that ruffian was the most rejoicing sight imaginable."

He got up and went to the door to look out towards the harbour. "All
quiet," he said; "I wonder if Sotillo