Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/176

 “I promise you that all will come down to coffee—coffee, coffee, and nothing but coffee.” “Think of Horace,” he continued; “has he not said, ‘’Coffee with something else? And do you not act in the same way, when you put sugar and milk in your cup?” And then I am forced to be silent; not because he is right, but because I and the firm Last and Co., have to take care that old Mr. Stern does not fall into the hands of Busselinck and Waterman, who would serve him very badly, because they are bunglers.

With your permission, reader! I give vent to my feelings, and in order that you, after reading what Stern has written—[have you really read it?]—should not pour out your wrath on an innocent head,—for what man will employ a broker who scolds him for a man-eater?—I take it for granted that you are convinced of my innocence. I cannot exclude young Stern from a share in my book, now that matters have gone so far. Louise Rosemeyer when she comes out of church—[the boys appear to wait for her]—asks if he will come early in the evening to read a good deal about Max Havelaar and Tine.

But as you bought or borrowed the book trusting in the respectable title, which promises something worth reading, I acknowledge your claims to something that is worth your money, and, therefore, I once more write a couple of chapters. You, reader, do not go to the parties of the Rosemeyers; and therefore you are more fortunate