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Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard beggarly people accustomed to my generosity. It is looked for from the capataz of the cargadores, who are the rich men, and, as it were, the caballeros among the common people. I don't care for cards but as a pastime; and as to those girls that boast of having opened their doors to my knock, you know I wouldn't look at any one of them twice except for what the people would say. They are queer, the good people of Sulaco, and I have got much useful information simply by listening patiently to the talk of women that everybody believed I was in love with. Poor Teresa could never understand that. On that particular Sunday, señor, she scolded so that I went out of the house swearing that I would never darken their door again, unless to fetch away my hammock and my chest of clothes. Señor, there is nothing more exasperating than to hear a woman you respect rail against your good reputation when you have not a single brass coin in your pocket. I untied one of the small boats and pulled myself out of the harbor with nothing but three cigars in my pocket to help me spend the day on this island. But the water of this rivulet you hear under your feet is cool and sweet and good, señor, both before and after a smoke." He was silent for a while, then added, reflectively: "That was the first Sunday after I brought the white-whiskered English rico all the way down the mountains from the Paramo on the top of the Entrada Pass—and in the coach, too! No coach had gone up or down that mountain road within the memory of man, señor, till I brought this one down in charge of fifty peons working like one man with ropes, pickaxes, and poles, under my direc-