Joseph Conrad

“ Antonio was down on his thick hams, busy rubbing a knife on a flat stone; Pedro was leaning against a small tree and passing his thumb along the edge of his blade. I got away quieter than a mouse, you bet."
"I didn't say anything to the boss then. He was leaning on his elbow on his rug, and didn't seem to want to be spoken to. He's like that--sometimes that familiar you might think he would eat out of your hand, and at others he would snub you sharper than a devil--but always quiet. Perfect gentleman, I tell you. ”

“ You wouldn't believe the damage a fellow with a knife under the table can do to ill-conditioned skunks that want to raise trouble, before they begin to understand what the screaming's about, and make a bolt--those that can, that is."
The roses of Schomberg's cheek at the root of his chestnut beard faded perceptibly. Ricardo chuckled faintly.
"But no ferocity--no ferocity! A gentleman knows. What's the good of getting yourself into a state? And no shirking necessity, either. No gentleman ever shirks. What I learn I don't forget. Why! ”

“ It's worse than slavery. You don't expect a slave that's bought for money to be grateful. And if you sell your work--what is it but selling your own self? You've got so many days to live and you sell them one after another. ”

“ Get him into the boat.'
"It was not difficult," continued Ricardo, after eyeing Schomberg fixedly for a moment. "He was ready enough to get into the boat, and--here he is. He would let himself be chopped into small pieces--with a smile, mind; with a smile!--for the governor. I don't know about him doing that much for me; but pretty near, pretty near. I did the tying up and the untying, but he could see who was the boss. And then he knows a gentleman. A dog knows a gentleman--any dog. It's only some foreigners that don't know; and nothing can teach them, either." ”

“ I don't understand."
"I think I do," said Ricardo. "A gentleman, you know, is not such a simple person as you or I; and not so easy to manage, either. If only I had something to lever him out with!"
"What do you mean, to lever him out with?" muttered Schomberg hopelessly.
Ricardo was impatient with this denseness.
"Don't you understand English? Look here! I couldn't make this billiard table move an inch if I talked to it from now till the end of days--could I? Well, the governor is like that, too, when the fits are on him. He's bored. ”

“ Schomberg bit his tongue just too late, and woke up completely as he saw Ricardo retract his lips in a cat-like grin; but the companion of "plain Mr. Jones" didn't alter his comfortable, gossiping attitude.
"Garn! What if he did want to see his money back, like any tame shopkeeper, hash-seller, gin-slinger, or ink-spewer does? Fancy a mud turtle like you trying to pass an opinion on a gentleman! A gentleman isn't to be sized up so easily. Even I ain't up to it sometimes. ”

“ Pooh! I can't stand the confounded liquor. Never could. A whiff of neat brandy in a glass makes me feel sick. Always did. If everybody was like me, liquor would be going a-begging. You think it's funny in a man, don't you?"
Schomberg made a vague gesture of toleration. Ricardo hitched up his chair and settled his elbow afresh on the table.
"French siros I must say I do like. Saigon's the place for them. I see you have siros in the bar. Hang me if I ain't getting dry, conversing like this with you. Come, Mr. Schomberg, be hospitable, as the governor says." ”

“ Next thing we did was to attend to the honourable Antonio, who was making a great smell frizzling his face on the red coals. We pushed and rolled him into the creek, and left the rest to the alligators.
"I was tired. That little scrap took it out of me something awful. The governor hadn't turned a hair. That's where a gentleman has the pull of you. He don't get excited. No gentleman does--or hardly ever. I fell asleep all of a sudden and left him smoking by the fire I had made up, his railway rug round his legs, as calm as if he were sitting in a first-class carriage. ”

“ He just nods the least bit, wipes his fingers on the plantain leaf, puts his hand behind his back, as if to help himself to rise from the ground, snatches his revolver from under his jacket and plugs a bullet plumb centre into Mr. Antonio's chest. See what it is to have to do with a gentleman. No confounded fuss, and things done out of hand. But he might have tipped me a wink or something. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Scared ain't in it! I didn't even know who had fired. Everything had been so still just before that the bang of the shot seemed the loudest noise I had ever heard. ”

“ A gentleman ain't accountable to nobody, any more than a tramp on the roads. He ain't got to keep time. The governor got like this once in a one-horse Mexican pueblo on the uplands, away from everywhere. He lay all day long in a dark room--"
"Drunk?" This word escaped Schomberg by inadvertence at which he became frightened. ”

“ That's just what a man like you would say. You are that tame! I follow a gentleman. That ain't the same thing as to serve an employer. They give you wages as they'd fling a bone to a dog, and they expect you to be grateful. ”

“ You know how he can trot around with trays? Well, he could bring down an ox with his fist, at a word from the boss, just as cleverly. And fond of the governor! Oh, my word! More than any dog is of any man."
Schomberg squared his chest.
"Oh, and that's one of the things I wanted to mention to Mr. Jones," he said. "It's unpleasant to have that fellow round the house so early. He sits on the stairs at the back for hours before he is needed here, and frightens people so that the service suffers. The Chinamen--"
Ricardo nodded and raised his hand. ”

“ Well, if you got your living that way you would be no worse than you are now, selling drinks to people--beastly beer and spirits, rotten stuff fit to make an old he-goat yell if you poured it down its throat. ”

“ It affected Schomberg unpleasantly as another example of something inhuman in those men wherein lay the difficulty of dealing with them. A spectre, a cat, an ape--there was a pretty association for a mere man to remonstrate with, he reflected with an inward shudder; for Schomberg had been overpowered, as it were, by his imagination, and his reason could not react against that fanciful view of his guests. And it was not only their appearance. The morals of Mr. Ricardo seemed to him to be pretty much the morals of a cat. Too much. What sort of argument could a mere man offer to a . ”

“ I was ramping mad about the lost time."
"'Why didn't you let me give him one on his silly coconut sir?' I asks.
"'No ferocity, no ferocity,' he says, raising his finger at me as calm as you please.
"You can't tell how a gentleman takes that sort of thing. They don't lost their temper. It's bad form. You'll never see him lose his temper--not for anybody to see anyhow. Ferocity ain't good form, either--that much I've learned by this time, and more, too. ”