How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #28
"The shed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely." (1.56)
Light is all friendly and illuminating when you just have to flip on a switch, but when the light is produced by a burning shed, it doesn't seem quite so harmless.
Quote #29
"He [the brickmaker] was a first-class agent, young, gentlemanly, a bit reserved, with a forked little beard and a hooked nose. He was stand-offish with the other agents, and they on their side said he was the manager's spy upon them." (1.56)
The fact that the brickmaker has a "forked little beard" and is called the "manager's spy" immediately throws his moral purity into doubt. (You think?) At least Conrad is giving us one freebie, since the rest of the book is beyond confusing.
Quote #30
"He struck a match, and I perceived that this young aristocrat had not only a silver-mounted dressing-case but also a whole candle all to himself. Just at that time the manager was the only man supposed to have any right to candles…The business intrusted to this fellow was the making of bricks - so I had been informed; but there wasn't a fragment of a brick anywhere in the station, and he had been there more than a year - waiting." (1.56)
The brickmaker is surrounded by awesome possessions—silver-mounted canes, whole candles, iPads. But he didn't get these by actually doing his work; he got them by being totally (if vaguely) corrupt.