It was this same custom which caused discomfiture to X. on the following day, when having received the promised special permit, a document calling upon all officials to assist him, in the name of the Governor-General himself, he decided that it would be only right that he should present himself at the house of the ruler who had signed it, and in token of gratitude and respect inscribe his name in his book. As the traveller had no intention of seeing anyone or attempting to enter the gorgeous palace which stands in the midst of the famous gardens, there seemed no need to trouble about the time for the call, and therefore it seemed well to make it the excuse for a walk and fit it in with his afternoon stroll. Accordingly about 5 o'clock found him walking up the broad avenue, on either side of which were browsing deer in great numbers—a very novel feature to anyone who for years had only seen such creatures wild excepting one time when—but no I must withhold the temptation to wander off the broad avenue which leads the visitor up to the stately pile in front of him as, like he did a little further on, I would wish to get it over. For it is not pleasant even to record the admittedly awkward situations in which X., who had always prided himself on his savoir faire, now so often found himself.

As he approached the portico (it reminded him much of Gorhambury, the seat of Lord Verulam, in Hertfordshire) the stranger became aware, rather than actually saw, that there were two figures seated on the main verandah having tea. He almost felt their eyes upon him in wonder and amusement, and, as he gradually neared the steps without in any way looking up, it was in some mysterious manner conveyed to him that these figures were ladies, and their dress, the sarong and kabaya! What was he to do. He could not turn and fly, nor could he diverge from the broad path and wander across the grass like any common trespasser—and, even while he wondered, his steps took him deliberately on, feeling self-conscious in the most literal understanding of the word—and inexorably each moment took him nearer, though in the endeavour to put off the evil moment he had, perhaps unknown to himself, slowed down his previously deliberate saunter until his feet were now doing little more than marking slow time. However, the visitor gazed alternately at the tops of the trees and the roof of the palace, as though things of absorbing interest were there taking place, and at last he was obliged to realize that he had reached the lowest step of the imposing staircase.

X. assures me that it is a fact, he never once lowered his eyes or focussed the little party before him, although ultimately the tea table could not have been more than a few yards off. There stood the stranger with a vacant expression which would have made the fortune of a performer in a waxwork show, and hoped and almost 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.