“Does Verstork write upon no other subject than this?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Charles, who was gradually regaining his composure. “Let us go into the inner room and I will read you the most interesting portion of his letter. This is not at all the place for a comfortable chat.”
Thereupon they left the study, which, with its folios and bulky law-books, did not indeed present a very sociable or cosy appearance.
“Sabieio, chairs and cigars for the gentlemen!” cried van Nerekool. When all were seated and the fragrant Manillas were lighted, he continued:
“Gentlemen, what do you say to a glass of beer?”
No very determined opposition being offered to this hospitable proposal, van Nerekool again called to his servant, “Sabieio, bring us some iced beer.”
Thus all having quenched their thirst in the pleasant and cooling beverage:
“Now then gentlemen,” said Charles, “I will give you the most important parts of William’s letter,” and he began to read as follows:
“ ‘Do you recollect that when we sat down to dinner together after our day’s hunting in the Djoerang Pringapoes, I told you of a certain recipe for pills to counteract opium, and how that I also told you what success I had already had with this medicine? Grenits, at the time, was not at all inclined to look favourably upon that communication, and took a very gloomy view of the prospect which lay before me. The words he used on that occasion have been continually ringing in my ears; and to this day I remember them as clearly as when they were spoken, he said: “Keep that prescription strictly to yourself, and don’t say a word about it to anybody. The Colonial Secretary, who has but one object in view, and that is to raise the opium revenue as much as possible, might look upon your remedy as an attack made upon the golden calf; and missionaries have before this been impeded in their Gospel work, and men have been expelled from the colonies, and official functionaries have been suspended or pensioned off for the commission of much more venial offences than bringing such pills as yours to the opium smokers.” Now, Charles, you know that although with an eye to the future of the members of my family, who, to some extent, depend upon me for support, I was, for a few moments, depressed at my friend’s gloomy prognostic; yet I soon rallied, and, after a little reflection, began to look upon Grenits’ words as the outcome of a passing fit of melancholy induced by our conversation, which had almost exclusively run on opium horrors and opium scandals. Indeed, Grenits himself could not have intended to paint the future in colours as dark as his words seemed to imply; for you remember that when I laughed and said: “Oh, it is not quite so bad as that, I hope,” he replied with a smile, “Perhaps not; but your pills will not earn you the Netherlands’ Lion.”
“ ‘Ah, no, Charles! I never aimed at any such distinction. The little good I have been able to do I have done simply for its own sake and without the least expectation of any recompense. Such ambition I have always most willingly left to others; for I know full well that seldom real merit, sometimes the directly opposite, but always a certain amount of pliability and want of back-bone, is rewarded by these outward tokens of official approbation. And the mere thought that I might so much as be suspected of belonging to those invertebrates would suffice to paralyse every effort on my part. The shaft which Theodoor thus shot at random missed its mark; yet neither he nor I could, at that time, suspect how much sarcasm lay hidden in his last words or how very much to the point had been his foregoing counsels. Now pay good heed to what I am about to tell you.