a country villa? Is that a hit at me? Am I not allowed to go to Driebergen, when Frits is a broker? And who ever talks of stomach-complaints in the presence of women and girls? It is a fixed principle with me always to remain calm—for I consider this useful in business—but I must admit that I often found it very difficult lately when hearing all the nonsense Stern reads out. What does he want? What will be the end of it? When will there at last be something solid? What do I care whether this fellow Havelaar keeps his garden tidy, and whether the people come into his house at the back or the front? At Busselinck & Waterman’s people go in through a narrow passage, next to an oil-warehouse, where it is always frightfully dirty. And then all that bother about those buffaloes! Why do they want buffaloes, those Blacks? I have never had a buffalo, and yet I live contented. There are people who are always complaining. And as to that throwing off at forced labour, it is easily seen that he has not heard the Reverend Twaddler’s sermon, otherwise he would know how useful that labour is for the spread of God’s Kingdom. But, of course, he is a Lutheran.
This is certain, if I could have guessed how he would write the book which is to be of such importance to all coffee-brokers—and others—I’d sooner have done it myself. But he gets support from the Rosemeyers, who are in sugar, and that’s what makes him so bold. I said straight out—for I am candid in things of this kind—that we could do perfectly well without the story of that Saïdyah, but then Louise Rosemeyer all at once set herself against me. It appears that Stern had told her that there would be something about love in it, and those girls are mad on that. However, that would not have put me off, only the Rosemeyers had told me they would like to get to know Stern's father. The idea is, of course, to get through the father at the uncle, who is in sugar. Now if I stand up too strongly for good sense against young Stern, I may create an impression that I want to draw them away from him, and that is in no way the case, for they are in sugar.
