I posted that letter.

You understand that old Mr.Stern could not very well give his custom to Busselinck and Waterman, if his son were in our office.
When _Max Havelaar_ gets to Java the narrative is less satisfactory, so tangential does it become, but there are enough passages in the manner of that which I have quoted to keep one happy, and to show how entertaining a satirist of his own countrymen at home "Multatuli" (whose real name was Edward Douwes Dekker) might have been had he been possessed by no grievance.
The book, which is very well worth reading, belongs to the literature of humanity and protest.

Its author had to suffer much acrimonious attack, and was probably called a Little Hollander, but the fragment from an unpublished play which he placed as a motto to his book shows him to have lacked no satirical power to meet the enemy:-- _Officer_ .-- My Lord, this is the man who murdered Betsy.
_Judge_ .-- He must hang for it.

How did he do it?
_Officer_ .-- He cut up her body in little pieces, and salted them.
_Judge_ .-- He is a great criminal.

He must hang for it.
_Lothario_ .-- My Lord, I did not murder Betsy: I fed and clothed and cherished her.