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Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard

Antonia is not the stuff they make nuns of. Bishop Corbelan, her uncle, lives with lier in the Corbelan town-house. He is a fierce sort of priest, everlastingly worrying the government about the old church-lands and convents. I believe they think a lot of him in Rome. Now let us go to the Amarilla Club, just across the Plaza, to get some lunch."

Directly outside the cathedral, on the very top of the noble flight of steps, his voice rose pompously, his arm found again its sweeping gesture.

"Porvenir, over there on that first floor, above those French plate-glass shop-fronts; our biggest daily. Conservative, or, rather, I should say, Parliamentary. We have the Parliamentary party here of which the actual Chief of the State, Don Juste Lopez, is the head; a very sagacious man, I think. A first-rate intellect, sir. The Democratic party in opposition rests mostly, I am sorry to say, on these socialistic Italians, sir, with their secret societies, camorras, and such like. There are lots of Italians settled here on the railway lands, dismissed navvies, mechanics, and so on, all along the trunk-line. There are whole villages of Italians on the Campo. And the natives, too, are being drawn into these ways . . . American bar? Yes. And over there you can see another. New-Yorkers mostly fre- quent that one— Here we are at the Amarilla. Observe the bishop at the foot of the stairs to the right as we go in."

And the lunch would begin and terminate its lavish and leisurely course at a little table in the gallery, Captain Mitchell nodding, bowing, getting up to speak for a moment to different officials in black clothes,

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