Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/39

 I trembled all over. He did not know what o’clock it was, and had to ask me something! Of course I replied that “I had no time to spare, and had to go to the Exchange,” though it was evening;—but if you have frequented the Exchange for some twenty years and a person asks you something without knowing what o’clock it is I disengaged the button, bade him farewell in a polite manner—for I am always polite—and went through the Kapelsteeg, which I otherwise never do, because it is not fashionable, and fashionableness I like above all things. I hope that nobody saw me.