was forced to take, was marked by that abjectness which was like the stamp of the man.  That was his characteristic; he was fundamentally and outwardly abject, as other men are markedly of a generous, distinguished, or venerable appearance.  It was the element of his nature which permeated all his acts and passions and emotions; he raged abjectly, smiled abjectly, was abjectly sad; his civilities and his indignations were alike abject.  I am sure his love would have been the most abject of sentiments—­but can one imagine a loathsome insect in love?  And his loathsomeness, too, was abject, so that a simply disgusting person would have appeared noble by his side.  He has his place neither in the background nor in the foreground of the story; he is simply seen skulking on its outskirts, enigmatical and unclean, tainting the fragrance of its youth and of its naiveness.

’His position in any case could not have been other than extremely miserable, yet it may very well be that he found some advantages in it.  Jim told me he had been received at first with an abject display of the most amicable sentiments.  “The fellow apparently couldn’t contain himself for joy,” said Jim with disgust.  “He flew at me every morning to shake both my hands—­confound him!—­but I could never tell whether there would be any breakfast.  If I got three meals in two days I considered myself jolly lucky, and he made me sign a chit for ten dollars every week.  Said he was sure Mr. Stein did not mean him to keep me for nothing.  Well—­he kept me on nothing as near as possible.  Put it down to the unsettled state of the country, and made as if to tear his hair out, begging my pardon twenty times a day, so that I had at last to entreat him not to worry.  It made me sick.  Half the roof of his house had fallen in, and the whole place had a mangy look, with wisps of dry grass sticking out and the corners of broken mats flapping on every wall.  He did his best to make out that Mr. Stein owed him money on the last three years’ trading, but his books were all torn, and some were missing.  He tried to hint it was his late wife’s fault.  Disgusting scoundrel!  At last I had to forbid him to mention his late wife at all.  It made Jewel cry.  I couldn’t discover what became of all the trade-goods; there was nothing in the store but rats, having a high old time amongst a litter of brown paper and old sacking.  I was assured on every hand that he had a lot of money buried somewhere, but of course could get nothing out of him.  It was the most miserable existence I led there in that wretched house.  I tried to do my duty by Stein, but I had also other matters to think of.  When I escaped to Doramin old Tunku Allang got frightened and returned all my things.  It was done in a roundabout way, and with no end of mystery, through a Chinaman who keeps a small shop here; but as soon as I left the Bugis quarter and went to live with Cornelius it began to be said openly that the Rajah had made up his mind to have me killed before long.  Pleasant, wasn’t it?  And I couldn’t see what there was to prevent him if he really had made up his mind.  The worst of it was, I couldn’t help feeling I wasn’t doing any good either for Stein or for myself.  Oh! it was beastly—­the whole six weeks of it."’