“Mon maître est an filou Et moi j’ n’ suis pas bête ... la ... la....”
Ah! good-morning! good-morning! _Mon maître est un filou._ Oh, yes! but we’ve had _circonstances_, splendid _circonstances_—to begin with.
_Frans._ Andries is a good fellow, a downright good fellow—but just the least bit _bête_. Never been to Paris, sir? Are you coming to Paris? _Allons mourir pour la patrie._
_Van Weller_ (_pushes him away roughly, so that Frans falls on the sofa_). Lie there, beast! Andries!
_Frans_ (_muttering_). _Mon maître est un filou...._ [_Falls asleep._]
_Van Weller_ (_stamps his foot_). Where the devil have you been all this time, fellow? Get the horses—at once—I must see the king immediately! [_Exit Andries._] My poor boy shall be righted, or they shall never hear the last of it!
MULTATULI. (_From_ “_The Bride in Heaven_.”)
I am a coffee-broker, and live at No. 37 Lauriergracht. It is not my custom to write novels, or any such thing; so it was a long time before I made up my mind to order a couple of reams of paper and begin the work which you, dear reader, have just taken up, and which you ought to read if you are in the coffee business,—or, in fact, if you are anything else. And not only have I never written anything which was in the least like a novel, but I don’t hold with even reading anything of the sort, because I am a man of business. For several years past, I have been asking myself, what is the use of such things? and I am perfectly amazed at the impudence of poets and novelists in palming off upon you things which have never happened, and, for the most part, never can happen. Now, in _my_ business,—I am a coffee-broker, and live in the Lauriergracht, No. 37,—if I were to send in to a principal (a principal is a man who sells coffee) an account containing only a small part of the untruths which are the main point in all poems and romances—why, he would at once go to Busselinck & Waterman. (Busselinck & Waterman are coffee-brokers too; but it is not necessary for you to know _their_ address.) So I take good care not to write any novels, or send in wrong accounts. I have always noticed that persons who let themselves in for that kind of thing generally get the worst of it. I am forty-three, and have been at the Exchange for twenty years, so that I have every right to put myself forward when a man of experience is in demand. I have seen plenty of firms fail in my time! And usually, when I examined into the causes of their failure, it seemed to me that they must be sought for in the wrong direction given to most people in their youth.