order to one of the servants crouching outside. “Morning, Duclari! Are you wet? What is the bag? Come in!”
A vigorous-looking man of about thirty, sturdy and soldierly in appearance, although there was not a vestige of uniform about him, entered the pendoppo. It was Lieutenant Duclari, commandant of the small garrison of Rangkas-Betoong. Verbrugge and he were friends, and their intimacy was the greater as, for some time already, Duclari had been staying at Verbrugge’s house, while awaiting the completion of a new fortress. He shook hands with his host, saluted the Regent courteously, and sat down with the question: “Well, what things have you got?”
“Will you take tea, Duclari?”
“No, thanks, I am already warm enough! Haven’t you any coco-nut milk? That’s fresher.”
“I shall not let them give you any. When one is warm, coco-nut milk is, I think, very bad. It makes one stiff and rheumatic. Just look at the coolies who carry heavy loads across the mountains: they keep themselves alert and supple by drinking hot water, or koppee dahoon. But ginger tea is still better.” . . .
“What? Koppee dahoon, tea made of coffee-leaves? I've never seen that.”
“That’s because you have not lived in Sumatra. There it is quite the custom.”
“Very well, give me tea then . . . but not made of coffee-leaves or ginger. Oh, yes, you have lived in Sumatra, and so has the new Assistant-Resident, hasn’t he?”
This conversation was carried on in Dutch, which language the Regent did not understand. Whether Duclari felt that there was some discourtesy in thus keeping him outside the discourse, or whether he had some other reason, he suddenly continued in Malay, addressing the Regent.
“Do you know, Adhipatti, that Mr. Verbrugge knows the new Assistant-Resident?”
