Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/28

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Out of delicacy I avoided every allusion to an honorarium or salary. But I added:

This is the absolute truth, for Mary darns and mends very nicely. And finally:

This he can put into his pipe, for the Sterns are Lutherans. And so I sent my letter. You will understand that old Stern cannot very well transfer his business to Busselinck & Waterman if his boy is in our office. I am dying to get his answer.

And now, reverting to my book. A short while since I happened to pass through the Kalver-street, and stopped to look at the shop of a grocer, who was busy mixing a parcel of Java, ordinary, fine-yellow, Cheribon-type, a little broken, with sweepings, which interested me a good deal, for I always take notice of everything. All of a sudden I spotted a gentleman who stood next door in front of a bookshop, and whom I thought I knew. He seemed to recognize me also, for our eyes kept meeting. I must confess that I was too much taken up with the sweepings to notice at once a thing which I saw afterwards, namely that he was rather shabbily dressed. Otherwise I should have left the matter alone. But all at once the thought occurred to me that he might be a traveller for a German firm, in search of a reliable broker. He certainly had a touch of the German about him, and also of the traveller. He was very fair, had blue eyes, and in his bearing and get-up there was something of the foreigner. Instead of a suitable winter coat, he had a kind of shawl