Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/41

Rh wardly,” as Stern calls it, promise that he would never again recite it—at least not before he is a member of “Doctrina,” as no young girls are admitted there—and then I put it away in my desk; I mean the poem. But I felt that I ought to know whether there was anything else in the parcel that might give offence. So I searched and turned over the papers. I could not read it all, for there were languages in it which I did not understand; but suddenly my eye lighted on a packet of papers: “Report on coffee-growing in the Residency of Menado.”

My heart leapt up within me, as I am a coffee-broker—Laurier Canal, No. 37—and Menado is a good brand. So then this Shawlman, who wrote such immoral verses, had also been in coffee. This made me look at the parcel with different eyes altogether, and I found articles in it, all of which, it is true, I did not understand, but which showed a real knowledge of affairs. There were statements, quotations, calculations of figures that I could not make head or tail of, and all of it was worked out with such care and precision that, speaking frankly—for I love the truth—the idea occurred to me that Shawlman, should the third clerk at any time fail—which is quite on the cards, as he is getting old and feeble—might perfectly well take his place. It goes without saying that I should first have to obtain references as to his honesty, beliefs and respectability, for I will have no one in the office before I am assured on those points. This is a fixed principle with me, as you have seen in the case of my letter to Ludwig Stern.

I did not want to show Frits that I was in any way interested in the contents of the parcel, so I sent him away. It really made me giddy, when I took up one packet after another, and read the superscriptions. It is true, there were many poems among them, but I also found many useful things, and I was amazed at the diversity of the subjects. I must admit—for I love the truth—that I, who have always dealt in coffee, am unable to estimate the value of all these things; but even without such an estimate, the list of titles alone was quite remarkable. As I have told you the story of