“And,” continued Meidema, with increasing vehemence, “that you offered the njonja Resident a roll of bank-notes also. Did you not?”
As he spoke these words, he flung the money down before him on the writing-table as if it burned his fingers.
At this the Chinaman turned livid—for a moment he was utterly confounded.
“There! you see, Resident!” continued Meidema, pointing to the farmer. “You see! Why, guilt is written in every line of the fellow’s face!”
At these words Lim Yang Bing recovered his presence of mind, he jumped up at once, snatched up the crumpled notes, spread them out before him, and began deliberately to count them, “one, two, three, four—ten.” Then slowly raising his expressionless eyes to Meidema’s face, he asked:
“Does the toean Assistant Resident really intend to accuse me of attempting to bribe him?”
“Yes, babah, I do most decidedly accuse you of it.”
“But, may I ask, why then does not the Kandjeng toean give me back the whole sum?” asked the Chinaman, very composedly, and with the usual smirk on his lips.
“The whole sum?” cried Meidema, utterly taken aback, “what on earth can the fellow mean?”
“Yes, toean,” replied Lim Yang Bing, “I said, the whole sum. I have felt for some time that the toean Assistant Resident is by no means kindly disposed to me or mine; but I think it is not quite fair of him to fling me back a small part of my money, and so to try and ruin me, while he keeps back the greater part for himself.”