Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/208

 be more than the women of Arles, even though she had no reason to be proud of her nose.

If Duclari still thought Havelaar a fool, one could not be surprised if he felt himself strengthened in this opinion, on perceiving the short anger that could be read in Havelaar’s face, after that nose-blowing. But he had returned from Carthage, and he read on the faces of his guests, with the rapidity with which he could read, when his mind was not too far away from home, that they had made the two following theorems:—


 * 1) “Whoever will not let his wife blow her nose is a fool.
 * 2) “Whoever thinks that a beautiful nose may not be blown, is wrong to apply that idea to Madam Havelaar, whose nose is a little en pomme de terre.”

Havelaar would not speak of the first theorem, but the second one—“Oh,” he said, as if he had to reply, though his guests had been too polite to speak their thoughts, “I will explain that to you, Tine”

“Dear Max!”, she said entreatingly; and she meant by these words to say, “Do not tell, these gentlemen why I should be in your estimation elevated above a bad cold”

Havelaar appeared to understand what Tine meant; for he replied, “Very well, dear.” But do you know, gentlemen, that one is often deceived in estimating the rights of men by material imperfections? I am quite sure that his guests never heard of these rights.

“I knew a little girl in Sumatra,” he continued, “the