Atlas Shrugged – Day 009 – pp. 84-93
It’s become do or die for the Taggarts. “I was counting on Colorado to save the Taggart system, Now it’s up to me to save Colorado.”
But Hank thinks Colorado is booming…
“I’ve been thinking of building a plant there in a few years. To save them your transporation charges… You’ll lose an awful lot of steel freight, if I do.”
“Go ahead, I’ll be satisfied with carrying your supplies, and the groceries for your workers and the freight of the factories that will follow you there…”
Never a problem for these two…
And now there is a little flirty-flirt between the two of them over the future of Rearden Metal.
Jeez, type As are weird.
Dagny’s in awe of the new metal. Hank’s going on about all the things he’s going to make out of Rearden Metal…
OK Have I missed something? Let’s move on…
Chapter V – The Climax of the D’Anconias.
Oooooo. Francisco’s chapter. When you get your own chapter, generally you’re not a minor character.
Eddie comes into Dagny’s office with a news report that the San Sebastian Mines were a complete bust. Totally worthless. Never had a scrap of copper in ’em.
(Mexico’s indignant. How dare they be given worthless mines to steal!!)
Here we go… Francisco’s no fool. Eddie doesn’t understand what could have happened; why … how he could have made a mistake like this…
“I’m beginning to (understand)”
On her way to the Wayne-Falkland Hotel for her meeting with Senor d’Anconia we have a expository flash back . . .
Apparently Fransisco was an annual visitor to the Taggart estate when they were children. D’Anconia’s parents were friends of the Taggarts and while Francisco was being brought up all over the world, he would spend one month every summer with the heirs to Taggart Transcontinental.
Francisco didn’t like Jim Taggart even then… Asked by Eddie if he was royalty, he replied,
“Not yet. The reaon my family has lasted for such a long time is that none of us has ever been permitted to think he is born a d’Anconia. We are expected to become one.”
Now that’s something…
He is heir to a copper dynasty founded by Sebastian d’Anconia who fled Spain to Argentina (pardon me, he’s Argentinian…)to escape political persecution. He landed dirt and quickly built an empire.
“Frisco” as Dagny calls him, is out of the same industrious mold. He sneaks off one summer to get a part time job at Taggart Transcontinental before getting busted and dragged back to the estate by Mrs. T.
“What would your father say?”
“My father would ask whether I was good at the job or not. That’s all he’d want to know.”
And he seems to be a golden boy, excelling at virtually everything he undertakes. Jim get’s a motorboat one year for his birthday and can barely sputter it around the lake. While Francisco gets in, takes a look at the controls and speeds off into the horizon…
“The d’Anconia heirs had been men of unusual ability, but now of them could match what Francisco d’Anconia promised to become.”
Nice place for a break…