Concession was a serious asset
in the country's finance, and, what was more, in the private budgets of many
officials as well. It was traditional. It was known. It was said. It was
credible. Every Minister of Interior drew a salary from the San Tomé mine. It
was natural. And Pedrito intended to be Minister of the Interior and President
of the Council in his brother's Government. The Duc de Morny had occupied those
high posts during the Second French Empire with conspicuous advantage to
himself.
    A table, a chair, a wooden bedstead had been procured for His Excellency,
who, after a short siesta, rendered absolutely necessary by the labours and the
pomps of his entry into Sulaco, had been getting hold of the administrative
machine by making appointments, giving orders, and signing proclamations. Alone
with Charles Gould in the audience room, His Excellency managed with his
well-known skill to conceal his annoyance and consternation. He had begun at
first to talk loftily of confiscation, but the want of all proper feeling and
mobility in the Señor Administrador's features ended by affecting adversely his
power of masterful expression. Charles Gould had repeated: »The Government can
certainly bring about the destruction of the San Tomé mine if it likes; but
without me it can do nothing else.« It was an alarming pronouncement, and well
calculated to hurt the sensibilities of a politician whose mind is bent upon the
spoils of victory. And Charles Gould said also that the destruction of the San
Tomé mine would cause the ruin of other undertakings, the withdrawal of European
capital, the withholding, most probably, of the last instalment of the foreign
loan. That stony fiend of a man said all these things (which were accessible to
His Excellency's intelligence) in a coldblooded manner which made one shudder.
    A long course of reading historical works, light and gossipy in tone,
carried out in garrets of Parisian hotels, sprawling on an untidy bed, to the
neglect of his duties, menial or otherwise, had affected the manners of Pedro
Montero. Had he seen around him the splendour of the old Intendencia, the
magnificent hangings, the gilt furniture ranged along the walls; had he stood
upon a daïs on a noble square of red carpet, he would have probably been very
dangerous from a sense of success and elevation. But in this sacked and
devastated residence, with the three pieces of common furniture huddled up in
the middle of the vast apartment, Pedrito's imagination was subdued by a feeling
of insecurity and impermanence. That feeling and the firm attitude of Charles
Gould