Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/303

 that I have done ‘what a good Assistant-Resident should do,’ prove that I am equal to the position given to me, prove that I do not thoughtlessly and rashly stake seventeen difficult years of service, and, what is more, the interest of wife and child shall I be able to  all this, if not a profound secrecy conceals my investigations, and prevents the guilty one from  himself, as it is called?

“On the slightest suspicion the Regent will send an urgent message to his nephew, who is on the way to him, and who is interested in backing him up. He will ask for money at any price, distribute it with a liberal hand to all those whom of late he has done out of their belongings, and the result may be—I trust it should not be necessary to say be—the opinion that  have passed a rash judgment, and, briefly, that I am an unpractical officer, not to say worse.

“It is in order to secure myself against this eventuality that I am writing this letter. I have the highest respect for you, but I know the spirit which may be called ‘the spirit of East-Indian officials,’ and I am possessed of that spirit!

“Your hint that it would have been better had the case first been treated, makes me fear a conference. What I said in yesterday’s letter is. But it might untrue if the case were treated in a manner that might tend to revealment of my charge and my suspicion

“I may not conceal from you that even your unexpected arrival, in connection with the urgent message I sent to Serang yesterday, makes me fear that the guilty one, who has hitherto refused to yield to my admonitions, will wake up  the right time, and will try, if possible, tant soit peu to exculpate himself.

“I have the honour, for the present, still to conform literally to my letter of yesterday; but I take the liberty at the same time to remark that that letter contained the proposal: