Note 3 — Chapter XVIII · [CONTINUATION OF STERN’S COMPOSITION.]

This Shawlman is a low beggar. You must know, reader, that Bastianus is again very often absent from the office, because he has gout. Now, as I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to throw away the funds of the firm (Last and Co.)—for where principles are concerned, I am immoveable. I thought the day before yesterday that Shawlman wrote a good hand, and, as he looked so very poor, that he could therefore certainly be got for small wages. I therefore thought that it was my duty to provide in the cheapest manner for the removal of Bastianus. I went accordingly to Shawlman’s house in the Lange Leidsche Dwarsstraat.3 The woman of the shop was at the door, but she seemed not to recognise me, though I had lately told her that I was Mr. Drystubble, coffee-broker, of the Laurier Canal. There is always a sort of insult in such a non-recognition; but as it was now not so cold, and as I wore last time I was there my coat trimmed with fur, I ascribed it to that, and think nothing of it—I mean the insult. I said therefore again that I was Mr. Drystubble, of the Laurier Canal, coffee-broker, and begged her to go and see if Shawlman was in, because I did not wish, as on the last occasion, to have to speak to his wife, who is always discontented. But the woman refused to go up-stairs. “She could not walk up and down stairs the whole day for that beggarly family,” said she, “but I could go and look for myself.” And then followed again a description of the staircase and doors, which I had no need of; for I always know a place where I have been once, because I pay such attention to everything. I have got accustomed to that in my business. So I went up-stairs, and knocked at the well-known door, which opened. I entered, and as I saw nobody in the room, I looked round. There was not much to be seen. A child’s trousers with an embroidered stripe hung over a chair—why need such people wear embroidered trousers?