Page:Kéraban the Inflexible Part 1 (Jules Verne).djvu/9

Rh one of them because he had been employed for twenty years in correspondence and merchants' business in the country; the other because he had frequently discharged the duties of secretary to his master, even while he acted in the capacity of a domestic servant.

These men were natives of Holland, and hailed from Rotterdam. Their names were Jan Van Mitten, and Bruno, his valet, whom destiny had driven to the extreme borders of Europe.

Van Mitten, a well-known individual, was a man of forty-five or forty-six years of age, still fair-haired, of fresh complexion, with blue eyes and yellow whiskers. He wore no moustaches. His nose was rather short relatively to his face; his head was massive; he had broad shoulders; stood somewhat below the middle height, and inclined to stoutness. His feet were more remarkable for usefulness than elegance. Altogether he had the air of a brave, resolute man; he was a good specimen of his nation.

Morally speaking, perhaps, Van Mitten was of a plastic temperament, of a somewhat pliable disposition—one of those men who, while of an extremely sociable and indeed humorous turn of mind, are ready to avoid discussion and ready to cede points; more fitting to obey than to command—quiet, phlegmatic individuals, who are supposed to have no decided will of their own. They are by no means the worse for that. Once and once only during his former life Van Mitten had been engaged in a discussion, the consequences of which had been very serious.

On that occasion certainly he had come out of himself, but before long he had re-entered his shell, so to speak. It would have been better, perhaps, had he yielded, and no doubt he would have done so, could he have foreseen the consequences. But it wiil not do to anticipate the events which form the ground-work of this tale.

"Well, sir!" said Bruno, when he and his master had reached Top-Hané.

"Well, Bruno?"

"Here we are, sir, in Constantinople."

"Yes," replied Van Mitten; "and some thousands of miles from Rotterdam."