I wrote that evening to old Mr. Stern, telling him to beware of false reports.
The reader understands what I have again suffered in listening to the last chapters. Was I not right when I said that Shawlman had made them all mad with his parcel? Would you recognise in this writing business of Sternand Fred too helps, that is certainyoung men that were educated in a respectable house?
What foolish sallies are these against a sickness which reveals itself in a desire for a country seat? Is that aimed at me? Am not I allowed to go to Driebergen as soon as Fred is a broker? And who speaks of dysentery in the company of mothers and daughters? It is a fixed principle with me always to remain quiet, for I think it useful in business; but I must confess, that it has often cost me a great deal to listen to all the nonsense that Stern reads. What does he mean? What must be the end of all this? When shall we hear anything substantial? Of what interest is it for me whether Havelaar keeps his garden clean or not, and whether those people enter in front of the house or at the back? At Busselinck and Waterman’s one has to go through a small entrance, near an oil warehouse, where it is always abominably dirty.And then those tiresome buffaloes. Why do they want buffaloes, those black fellows? . . . . I never had a buffalo, and yet I am contented;—there are men who are always complaining. And as regards that scoffing at forced labour, I
