Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/26

 world every respectable broker or merchant considers to be ridiculous madness. When I was married, we were thirteen of us at the office of my father-in-law, Last and Co.,—and a good deal of business was done there, I can assure you. And now for more lies on the stage:—When the hero walks away in a stiff, stage-like manner, to serve his native country, why does the back-door always open of itself?

And then this Virtue rewarded!—oh, oh! I have been these seventeen years a coffee-broker, at No. 37 Laurier Canal, and I have had a great deal of experience, but I am always much shocked when I see the dear, good truth so distorted. Virtue, forsooth! just as if virtue was a trade commodity! It is not so in the world, and it is very good that it is not so, for where would be the real merit if virtue were always rewarded? Why then always invent such shameful lies? There is, for instance, Lucas, the warehouse-porter, who had been in the employ of Last and Co.’s father,—the firm was then Last and Meyer, but the Meyers are no longer in it,—he was really an honest man, in my opinion. Never was a single coffee-bean missing; he went to church very punctually; and was a teetotaller. When my father-in-law was at his country seat at Driebergen, this man kept the house, the cash, and everything. Once the bank paid him seventeen guilders too much, and he returned them. He is now too old and gouty to work,