prayed that a servant
of some kind would appear, receive his signature or his card and allow
him to return to the comfortless obscurity of his hotel. There was no
bell, and no servant came, and the silence at length became unbearable.
Relief came at last from the tea party for the voice of a lady suddenly
fairly shrieked for a "boy." After this explosion the tension of the
situation was relieved, and there was a sound as of chairs hastily
pushed back and the patter of little feet and the rustle of sarongs,
which led X. to infer that there had been some sort of a retreat. Then a
flurried native appeared, he seemed a kind of gardener hastily fetched
from his duties, possibly the mowing machine, and pouring forth words in
a strange dialect he pointed wildly to another flight of steps and
another door. Following this menial, a veritable _deus ex machina_, X.
was led down those palatial steps and up another flight round the
corner. There the gardener threw open a door and seemed disposed to
resign his custody of the stranger, preparing to return again to his
machine. But X. steadily declined to enter alone into that vast hall,
nor would he even stay to look for a book in which to write his name,
for he felt that the hasty retreat he had heard was not carried beyond
the nearest pillars, and each moment he tarried, the fugitives were
wondering what he could be doing while, alas, their tea was getting
cold. And so he thrust his card, his only guarantee of good faith, into
the soiled hand of the solitary attendant of this Eastern palace and
fled--but fled he hoped with dignity. As he walked down the avenue with
conscious and deliberate steps--admiring the view on the right of him
and the view on the left of him--never looking back, though the desire
for one glance was so overpowering that the nape of his neck actually
ached, he conquered, and finally emerged from those great gates without
any further satisfaction to the curiosity aroused by his first
involuntary glimpse. But so long as he remained in Java he never paid
another call before dusk, a more convenient time, when such
_contretemps_ are not likely to occur.

CHAPTER XII.

A MODEL ESTATE

X. was informed that the proper journey from Buitenzorg was by carriage
_via_ Poentjuk to Sindanglaya, where a stay should be made at
Gezondleid's establishment after securing an upstairs room. The next
stage in the traveller's journey is to Tjandjoer and thence to Garvet.
A