“The Assistant Resident of Padang had made a report that sounded favourably for his suspended Controller, whose suspension got in this way a colour of injustice. The Padang scandal continued: people always were talking about the disappearance of the child; the Assistant Resident was again obliged to notice the matter; but before he could clear up the mystery, he received an order, whereby he was suspended by the Governor of Western Sumatra ‘because of negligence.’ He had, as it was said, out of friendship or pity, and while he knew better, represented the matter of the Controller in a false light. I did not read the documents concerning this affair; but I know that the Assistant Resident was not in the least connected with this Controller, which is already evident from his having been chosen to examine the matter. I know, moreover, that he was an estimable person, and the Government thought so too, which appears from the annulling of the suspension after the affair had been [[214]]examined elsewhere than on the west coast of Sumatra. This Controller also was afterwards restored to his honour. It was their suspension which inspired me with the epigram that I caused to be put down on the General’s breakfast-table by somebody who was then in his service, and had been formerly in mine—
‘Suspension on legs, the suspension that rules—
Old Jack the Suspender, the bogie of fools—
Would surely his Conscience itself have suspended,
Were’t not that it long ago finally ended!’ ”[5]
“Such a thing was not proper,” said Duclari.
“I quite agree; … but I was bound to do something. Only fancy: I had no money, received nothing: that I feared every day starvation, which in reality I was very near, I had few or no relations at Padang, and, moreover, I told the General that he was responsible if I perished from hunger, and that I should accept aid of nobody. In the interior there were persons who, on hearing what had happened, invited me to come to their homes; but the General prohibited the issue of my passport thither. Neither was I allowed to go to Java. Anywhere else I could have managed it, and perhaps there too, if people had not been so afraid of the mighty General. It appeared [[215]]to be his intention to let me starve. Such a state of things lasted nine months!”
“And how did you live all that time? had the General plenty of turkeys?”
“No, I did that only once.… I made verses, and wrote comedies … and so on.”
“And was that enough to buy rice at Padang?”