Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART THIRD: THE LIGHTHOUSE 10. CHAPTER TEN (continued)

"All the great world of Sulaco here, sir." Captain Mitchell bowed
right and left with no end of formality; then with animation,
"Dona Emilia, Mrs. Gould's carriage. Look. Always white mules.
The kindest, most gracious woman the sun ever shone upon. A great
position, sir. A great position. First lady in Sulaco--far before
the President's wife. And worthy of it." He took off his hat;
then, with a studied change of tone, added, negligently, that the
man in black by her side, with a high white collar and a scarred,
snarly face, was Dr. Monygham, Inspector of State Hospitals,
chief medical officer of the Consolidated San Tome mines. "A
familiar of the house. Everlastingly there. No wonder. The Goulds
made him. Very clever man and all that, but I never liked him.
Nobody does. I can recollect him limping about the streets in a
check shirt and native sandals with a watermelon under his
arm--all he would get to eat for the day. A big-wig now, sir, and
as nasty as ever. However . . . There's no doubt he played his
part fairly well at the time. He saved us all from the deadly
incubus of Sotillo, where a more particular man might have
failed----"

His arm went up.