Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/129

 this great indulgence towards the Tax Collector. The clerk soon returned with some papers. Havelaar signed and gave orders that the payment should be expedited.

“Verbrugge, I’ll tell you why I do this! The Regent hasn’t a penny in his house, his clerk told me so, and besides his brusque request! The thing is obvious. It is he who wants that money, and the collector will lend it to him. I’d sooner on my own responsibility set aside a formality than leave a man of his rank and years in embarrassment. Moreover, Verbrugge, in Lebak there is a scandalous abuse of authority. You must know this. Do you know it?”

Verbrugge was silent. He knew it.

“I know it,” continued Havelaar, “ Didn’t Mr. Slotering die in November? Well, the Regent summoned people to work   without payment! You should have known this, Verbrugge. you know it?”

Verbrugge did know.

“As Controller you to have known it! know it,” Havelaar continued. “Over there are the monthly reports of the districts”—and he showed the parcel of papers which he had received at the meeting—“you see, I have opened nothing. But in that parcel are, among other things, the statements of labourers furnished at the head-centre for statute service. Well, are these statements correct?”

“I have not yet seen them ”

“Neither have I! And yet I ask you whether they are correct. Were the statements for the previous month correct?”

Verbrugge was silent.

“I’ll tell you: they were For three times more people had been summoned to work for the Regent than the Regulations on statute service permit, and of course one does not put this into the statements. Is it true what I say?”

Verbrugge was silent.

“Again the statements I have received to-day are false,” con-