th's Sound,
and beyond, too, if anything worth taking hold of turns up at the North
Pole. And then we shall have the leisure to take in hand the outlying
islands and continents of the earth. We shall run the world's business
whether the world likes it or not. The world can't help it--and neither
can we, I guess."

By this he meant to express his faith in destiny in words suitable to
his intelligence, which was unskilled in the presentation of general
ideas. His intelligence was nourished on facts; and Charles Gould, whose
imagination had been permanently affected by the one great fact of a
silver mine, had no objection to this theory of the world's future.
If it had seemed distasteful for a moment it was because the sudden
statement of such vast eventualities dwarfed almost to nothingness the
actual matter in hand. He and his plans and all the mineral wealth of
the Occidental Province appeared suddenly robbed of every vestige of
magnitude. The sensation was disagreeable; but Charles Gould was not
dull. Already he felt that he was producing a favourable impression; the
consciousness of that flattering fact helped him to a vague smile, which
his big interlocutor took for a smile of discreet and admiring assent.
He smiled quietly, too; and immediately Charles Gould, with that mental
agility mankind will display in defence of a cherished hope, reflected
that the very apparent insignificance of his aim would help him to
success. His personality and his mine would be taken up because it was
a matter of no great consequence, one way or another, to a man who
referred his action to such a prodigious destiny. And Charles Gould was
not humiliated by this consideration, because the thing remained as
big as ever for him. Nobody else's vast conceptions of destiny could
diminish the aspect of his desire for the redemption of the San Tome
mine. In comparison to the correctness of his aim, definite in space and
absolutely attainable within a limited time, the other man appeared for
an instant as a dreamy idealist of no importance.

The great man, massive and benignant, had been looking at him
thoughtfully; when he broke the short silence it was to remark that
concessions flew about thick in the air of Costaguana. Any simple soul
that just yearned to be taken in could bring down a concession at the
first shot.

"Our consuls get their mouths stopped with them," he continued, with a
twinkle of genial scorn in his eyes. But in a moment h