Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/77



was a good man. When one looked at him, as he sat there in his blue cloth uniform, with embroidered oak and orange branches on the collar and cuffs, one could not fail to recognize in him the type prevalent among the Dutch in India a type, it may be remarked in passing, which differs considerably from the Dutch in Holland. Indolent as long as there was nothing to do, and quite free from all the fussiness which in Europe counts for zeal, but zealous where action was necessary simple and cordial towards all who belonged to his entourage, communicative, obliging and hospitable  well-mannered without stiffness  receptive to good impressions  honest and sincere, without however any inclination to become a martyr to these qualities  in a word, he was a man who would impress one anywhere as being in the right place, although no one would suggest that he would leave his mark on the age, an honour which certainly also he would not have sought.

He sat in the centre of the pendoppo at the table, which was covered with a white table-cloth and laden with dishes. Now and then he more or less impatiently asked the mandoor-orderly, i.e. the officer in charge of the police and office-attendants at the assistant-residency, using the words of Mrs. Bluebeard’s sister, whether no one was coming yet. Then he would get up, try in vain to rattle his spurs on the firm-trodden clay floor of the pendoppo, light his cigar for the twentieth time, and sit down again disappointed. He spoke little.

And yet he might have spoken, for he was not alone. In saying this I do not exactly refer to the company of the twenty or thirty Javanese servants, mantrees, and orderlies, who sat outside the