Like this the mine preserved its identity, with which he had
endowed it as a boy; and it remained dependent on himself alone. It was
a serious affair, and he, too, took it grimly.
"Of course," he said to his wife, alluding to this last conversation
with the departed guest, while they walked slowly up and down the
corredor, followed by the irritated eye of the parrot--"of course, a
man of that sort can take up a thing or drop it when he likes. He will
suffer from no sense of defeat. He may have to give in, or he may have
to die to-morrow, but the great silver and iron interests will survive,
and some day will get hold of Costaguana along with the rest of the
world."
They had stopped near the cage. The parrot, catching the sound of a word
belonging to his vocabulary, was moved to interfere. Parrots are very
human.
"Viva Costaguana!" he shrieked, with intense self-assertion, and,
instantly ruffling up his feathers, assumed an air of puffed-up
somnolence behind the glittering wires.
"And do you believe that, Charley?" Mrs. Gould asked. "This seems to me
most awful materialism, and--"
"My dear, it's nothing to me," interrupted her husband, in a reasonable
tone.
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