

At that time Nostromo had been already long enough in the country to raise to
the highest pitch Captain Mitchell's opinion of the extraordinary value of his
discovery. Clearly he was one of those invaluable subordinates whom to possess
is a legitimate cause of boasting. Captain Mitchell plumed himself upon his eye
for men - but he was not selfish - and in the innocence of his pride was already
developing that mania for lending you my Capataz de Cargadores which was to
bring Nostromo into personal contact, sooner or later, with every European in
Sulaco, as a sort of universal factotum - a prodigy of efficiency in his own
sphere of life.
    »The fellow is devoted to me, body and soul!« Captain Mitchell was given to
affirm; and though nobody, perhaps, could have explained why it should be so, it
was impossible on a survey of their relation to throw doubt on that statement,
unless, indeed, one were a bitter, eccentric character like Dr. Monygham - for
instance - whose short, hopeless laugh expressed somehow an immense mistrust of
mankind. Not that Dr. Monygham was a prodigal either of laughter or of words. He
was bitterly taciturn when at his best. At his worst people feared the open
scornfulness of his tongue. Only Mrs. Gould could keep his unbelief in men's
motives within due bounds; but even to her (on an occasion not connected with
Nostromo, and in a tone which for him was gentle), even to her, he had said
once, »Really, it is most unreasonable to demand that a man should think of
other people so much better than he is able to think of himself.«
    And Mrs. Gould had hastened to drop the subject. There were strange rumours
of the English doctor. Years ago, in the time of Guzman Bento, he had been mixed
up, it was whispered, in a conspiracy which was betrayed and, as people
expressed it, drowned in blood. His hair had turned grey, his hairless, seamed
face was of a brick-dust colour; the large check pattern of his flannel shirt
and his old stained Panama hat were an established defiance to the
conventionalities of Sulaco. Had it not been for the immaculate cleanliness of
his apparel he might have been taken for one of those shiftless Europeans that
are a moral eyesore to the respectability of a foreign colony in almost every
exotic part of the world. The young ladies of Sulaco, adorning with clusters of
pretty faces the balconies along the Street of the Constitution, when they saw
him pass, with his limping gait and bowed head, a short
