hanging over his shoulder—Frits says “Châle”: he is learning French, but I keep to our good old language—as if he had just come from a journey. I thought I was meeting a client, and gave him an address-card: Last & Co., coffee-brokers, Laurier Canal, No. 37. He held it up to the gaslight and said: “Thank you, but I find I am mistaken; I thought I had the pleasure of seeing an old schoolfellow; but . . . Last? That’s not the name.”
“Beg pardon,” said I—for I am always courteous—“I am Mr. Drystubble, Batavus Drystubble. Last & Co. is the firm, coffee-brokers, Laurier . . .”
“Well, Drystubble, have you forgotten me? Just look well at me.”
The more I looked at him, the more I remembered having seen him before. But strange to say, his face had the effect on me of making me smell outlandish perfumes. Don’t laugh at this, reader, you will see presently what was the cause of it. I am sure he did not carry a drop of perfume about him, and yet I smelt something agreeable, something strong, something that reminded me. . . . I had got it!
“Is it you,” I exclaimed, “who rescued me from the Greek?”
“Most decidedly,” he said, “that was I. And how are you?”
I told him that there were thirteen of us at the office, and that there was a lot doing in our firm. And then I asked how he was getting on, which I regretted afterwards, for he appeared to be in any but flourishing circumstances, and I am not keen on poor people, as there is usually some fault of their own at the back of it, for the Lord would not desert anyone who had served him faithfully. Had I said quite simply: “we are thirteen, and . . . well, good evening!” I should have been quit of him. But all these questions and answers made it more and more difficult—Frits says: “ever more difficult”; but I don’t—more and more difficult then, to get rid of him. On the other hand, however, I must also admit that then you would not have got this book to read, for it is the result of that meeting. I like to notice the good as well as the bad, and
