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.