State regulations required daily conferences, that the civil arm of the government might lay its commands upon the military and the military make its requisitions upon the civil. An additional incentive to prompt attendance upon these was that mynheer the resident rarely failed to produce a bottle of Hollands, which, compounded with certain odorous and acidulated products of the tropics, made a drink that cooled the fevered brow and mellowed the human heart, made a hundred and twenty in the shade seem like seventy, and chased away the home-sickness of folk pining for the damp and fog of their native Amsterdam.
It was no urgent affair of state, however, that made Muller fume and fuss like a washerwoman on a rainy Monday at Van Slyck's dilatoriness. A bit of gossip, casually dropped by the master of a trading schooner who had called for clearance papers an hour before, was responsible for his agitation.
"When does your new resident arrive?" the visiting skipper had asked.
"The new resident?" Muller returned blankly. "What new resident?"
The skipper perceived that he was the bearer of unpleasant tidings and diplomatically minimized the importance of his news.
"Somebody down to Batavia told me you were going to have a new resident here," he replied lightly. "It's only talk, I s'pose. You hear so many yarns in port."
"There is nothing official—yet," Muller declared. He had the air of one who could tell much if he chose. But when the sailor had gone back to his ship he hurriedly sent Cho Seng to the stockade with an urgent request to Van Slyck to come to his house at once.
Van Slyck was putting the finishing touches to an exquisite toilet when he received the message.
"What ails the doddering old fool now?" he growled irritably as he read Muller's appeal. "Another Malay run amuck, I suppose. Every time a few of these bruinevels (brown-skins) get krissed he thinks the whole province is going to flame into revolt."
Tossing the note into an urn, he leisurely resumed his dressing. It was not until he was carefully barbered, his hair shampooed and perfumed, his nails manicured, and his mustache waxed and twisted to the exact angle that a two-months old French magazine of fashion dictated as the mode, that the dapper captain left the stockade. He was quite certain that the last living representative of the ancient house of Van Slyck of Amsterdam would never be seen in public in dirty linen and unwashed, regardless how far mynheer the controlleur might forget his self-respect and the dignity of his office.