Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/66

 that her dress is a sort of Indian costume, which they call there Sarong and Kabaai, but I thought it very ugly.

“Are you Shawlman’s wife?” I asked.

“To whom have I the honour to speak?” she said, and that in a tone which seemed to me as if she meant that I might have said too.

Now, I dislike compliments. With a “Principal” it is a different thing, and I have been too long a man of business not to know my position, but to give myself much trouble on a third storey, I did not think necessary. So I said briefly that I was Mr. Drystubble, coffee-broker, at No. 37 Laurier Canal, and that I wanted to speak to her husband.

She pointed me to a little chair, and took a little girl on her lap, that was playing on the ground. The little boy whom I had overheard singing looked steadily at me, having viewed me from head to foot. He also, though only six years old, appeared to be not at all perplexed. He was dressed in a very strange way, his wide trousers scarcely reached half-way down the thigh, and his legs were naked to the ankles.—Very indecent, I think. “Do you come to speak to papa?” he asked all of a sudden; and I saw at once that he had been badly brought up, otherwise he would have said “Sir.” But as I was a little out of countenance, and wanted to speak, I replied—

“Yes, my boy, I am here to speak to your papa; do you think he will be in soon?”