38
Max Havelaar
—with such feeling, and that he would rather be silent than see his words held in the debasing fetters of commonplace. I certainly thought this very silly on Stern’s part, but my profession comes first, and the Old Man is a good firm. So we settled:
- That he should supply every week a couple of chapters for my book;
- That I should change nothing in his writing;
- That Frits should correct the grammar;
- That I should from time to time write a chapter myself, to give the book an appearance of solidity;
- That the title should be: The coffee-sales of the Netherlands Trading Company:
- That Mary should make a neat copy for press, but that we should have patience with her whenever the laundry things came home;
- That the finished chapters should every week be read aloud at the party;
- That all immorality should be avoided;
- That my name should not appear on the title-page, as I am a broker;
- That Stern should be authorized to publish a German, French, and English translation of my book, because—so he maintained—such works are better understood in foreign countries than with us;
- (Stern emphatically insisted on this.) That I should send Shawlman a ream of paper, a gross of pens and a bottle of ink.
I acquiesced in everything, as my book was very urgent. The following day Stern had finished his first chapter, and there you see, reader, the answer to the question how a coffee-broker—Last & Co., Laurier Canal, No. 37—comes to be writing a book that resembles a novel.
No sooner, however, had Stern set to work, than he was confronted by obstacles. Besides the difficulty among so many ma-
