had extended to the circle of his district: he took a paternal pride in his assistant-residents and controllers, among whom he was popular and beloved. It had happened only once in the six years during which he had been Resident of Labuwangi that he had been unable to get on with a controller: then the man was a half-caste, and he had had him transferred: had him sacked, as he put it. And he was proud that, despite his strict discipline, despite his stern insistence on work, he was beloved by his officials. He was all the more grieved by the constant secret enmity of the regent, his "younger brother," to use the Javanese title, in whom indeed he would gladly have found a younger brother to govern his native population under himself, the elder brother. It grieved him that matters had fallen out thus; and he would then think of other regents, not only of this one's father, the fine old pangéran, but of others whom he knew: the Regent of D---, a cultivated man, speaking and writing Dutch correctly, contributing lucid Dutch articles to newspapers and magazines; the Regent of S---, a trifle frivolous and vain, but very rich and very benevolent, figuring as a dandy in European society and polite to the ladies. Why should things have fallen out just so in Labuwangi, with this silent, spiteful, secretive, fanatical puppet, with the reputation of a saint and sorcerer, stupidly idolized by the people, in whose welfare he took no interest and who adored him only for the glamour of his ancient name, a man in whom he always felt an antagonism, never uttered in words, but plainly palpable under his icy correctness of demeanour? And then at Ngadjiwa too there was the brother, the card-player, the gambler: why should just he be so unlucky in his regents?