Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/178

 or less in all of us. One loves to be able to say: ‘It is true that Peter or Paul is or  or  but  he is also   cannot be denied him!’ And one is never so certain of being praised as when one is possessed of a very conspicuous failing. You, Verbrugge, are drunk every day ”

“I?” asked Verbrugge, who was a paragon of temperance.

“Yes, am now making you drunk, daily! You forget yourself so far that Duclari of an evening stumbles over you in the veranda. He will think this disagreeable, but at once he will remember having noticed some good quality in you which, after all, was not conspicuous formerly. And when I come on the scene, and find you so objectionably  he will lay his hand on my arm, and exclaim: ‘Ah! do believe that in every other respect he is such a dear, fine, smart fellow!

“ I’ll say of Verbrugge in any case,” exclaimed Duclari, “even when he is

“But not with such fire and conviction! Just remember how often one hears: ‘Oh, if man would look after his business, wouldn’t he be  But ’ and then follows the demonstration that he does mot look after his business, and is therefore  I believe I know the reason of this. Of the dead, too, one always learns good qualities that formerly we never noticed. The cause is no doubt that All men are more or less competitors. We would love to place everyone else and in  below us. To express this, however, is forbidden by good manners and even by self-interest, for soon no one would believe us even though we maintained true things. We have, therefore, to find a roundabout way, and this is how we do it. When you, Duclari, say: ‘Lieut. Spatterdash is a good soldier, I swear he is a good soldier, I cannot tell you emphatically enough what a good soldier Lieutenant Spatterdash is but he is no good at  ’ Didn’t you say so, Duclari?”

“I have never known or seen a Lieutenant Spatterdash!”