Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/300

 The day after, this Resident paid us a return-visit, and so did the gentleman for whom the Javanese prepare tea. They are such nice people, and yet men of such importance! They both at the same time asked by what train we expected to arrive in Amsterdam. We did not understand the meaning of this, but afterwards it was cleared up, for when we arrived on the Monday morning, there were two servants at the station, one with a red waistcoat, and one with a yellow waistcoat, who each told us at the same time that they had received orders by telegram to meet us with a carriage. My wife was embarrassed, and I thought of what Busselinck & Waterman would have said if they had seen it that there were two carriages for us at the same time, I mean. But it was not easy to make a choice, for I could not offend one of the two parties by declining so charming an attention. What was I to do? But again I managed to find my way out of that exceedingly difficult circumstance. I placed my wife and Marie in the red carriage—I mean the barouche of the red waistcoat—and myself stepped into the yellow one I mean the carriage.

How those horses ran! In the Weesper-street, which is always so dirty, the mud flew up to right and left house-high, and, as fate would have it, there we passed that vagabond of a Shawlman, with a stoop, his head bowed down, and I saw how with the sleeve of his shabby short coat he tried to wipe the splashes from his face. I have rarely had a pleasanter outing, and my wife said the same thing.