Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/103

 and Malay those consonants are expressed by one letter-symbol, that Hieronymus passes through Geronimo into Jerome, that we make guano out of huano, that our hand fits into a French gant, that a Dutch kous is an English hose, and that for Guild Heaume we say in Dutch Hooillem or Willem. So much erudition cannot of course be expected from a man who made his fortune “in” indigo, and who extracted his culture from the success of gambling or worse!

And naturally such Europeans cannot be expected to be hail-fellow-well-met with a lip-lap!

I, however, understand how Willem originates in Guillaume, and I must admit that especially in the Moluccas I have often met “lip-laps” who amazed me by the extent of their knowledge, and who suggested to me that we Europeans, in spite of all the resources at our disposal, often—and not merely by comparison—are far behind the poor pariahs who from the cradle struggle with artificially unjust setbacks and with the silly prejudice against their colour.

But Mrs. Slotering was once and for all safeguarded against mistakes in Dutch, as she never spoke anything but Malay. We shall have a look at her later, when we take tea with Havelaar, Tine, and little Max in the colonnade of the assistant-residency at Rangkas-Betoong, where our travellers, after endless jolting and jerking, arrived at last safely.

The Resident, who had only come to install the new Assistant-Resident in his office, expressed his wish to return the same day to Serang:

Because. He

Havelaar also expressed his readiness to lose no time

Was. “So. Very. Busy.”

and the arrangement was made that within half an hour they would meet for the purpose in the spacious colonnade of the Regent’s residence. Verbrugge, who had anticipated this, had several days before instructed the District-Chiefs, the Patteh, the