opened it and just glanced at the signature. Then dropping it carelessly on the table, he asked,
"Have you discovered whether the missing men had procured any drink?"
"Not any, Colonel."
"Who commands the guard?"
"Corporal Greenwood."
"Ahem; also an old drunkard. Ascertain from him and from the sentries whether Baba Poetjieng has been in the batang." The sergeant withdrew.
Baba and Kee are used to designate the Chinese in the Dutch Indies. The former is the more complimentary. Kee is humiliating and almost a nickname.
Baba Poetjieng was a sly Chinaman who had managed to make himself indispensable to the garrison by the sale of such merchandise as tobacco, needles, thread, beer, canned meats and vegetables, paper, pens and ink, etc., all of the first quality and unmistakably cheap. His prices, compared with those of the European merchants of Bandjermasin and even of Java, could not possibly have yielded him the smallest profit. It rather seemed as if he actually lost by his transactions. This he swore by the coffin of his father and grandfather was really the case; alleging that it was a reai pleasure to him to serve his good friends the Hollanders. One day the Colonel happened to pick up outside of the fort an empty sardine box, and upon examining it became struck by its peculiar trade-mark and by an extraordinary smell which seemed to cling to it. Finding a second box on a subsequent occasion, he again detected the
