Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/31

 that the young German who always stood at the Ex­change, near the seventeenth pillar, has eloped with the daughter of Busselinck and Waterman? Our Mary, like her, will be thirteen years old in September.

“That I had the honour to hear from Mr. Saffeler”—[Saffeler travels for Stern]—“that the honoured head of the firm, Ludwig Stern, had a son, Mr. Ernest Stern, who wished for employment for some time in a Dutch house.”

“That I, mindful of this”—[here I referred again to the immorality of employés, and also to the history of that daughter of Busselinck and Waterman; it won’t do any harm to tell it],—“that I, mindful of this, wished, with all my heart, to offer Mr. Ernest Stern the German correspondence of our firm.”

From delicacy I avoided all allusion to honorarium or salary; yet I said:—

“That if Mr. Ernest Stern would like to stay with us, at 37 Laurier Canal, my wife would care for him as a mother, and have his linen mended in the house”—[that is the very truth, for Mary sews and knits very well],—and in conclusion I said, “that we were a religious family.”

The last sentence may do good, for the Sterns are Lutherans. I posted that letter. You understand that old Mr. Stern could not very well give his custom to Busselinck and Waterman, if his son were in our office.