When it was my turn to be banker I put the 2 guilders in the pot which we had organised before and I was lucky to see this run higher and after the 3 departed ships even to 1500 guilders, which became mine. Under the contents of the pot were several iow’s from players who couldn’t pay their input, and looking at the anxious faces one could see how they coped with their loss.
Once I let myself get persuaded to play for a very low tariff a short game of ecarte with a French administration officer; the friend played the game excellently though he had terrible luck with it, sothat from the 30 games I only could win 2 and thus lost 14 francs; since then I have categorised ecarte also under the dicegames, whilst in my opinion that luck and bad luck certainly exsist was substantiated.
In Lochem we were picked up by von Dentschz with a carriage and taken to the nearby lying oldfashioned lodge de Dak, where the bridegroom offered us a dinner as a farewell to his bachelor’s life. The dinner was in line with the oldfashioned trend of the hotel and the innkeeper no less; he adressed himself to the later coming army commanders with the words: “He, you do something for a living too and cut that piece of meat for us!” And it was a piece of meat, of which the four of us could surely have had enough for 14 days. The menu was actually very extravagant and deliciously prepared and we ate a lot of it, perhaps even too much in view of the plans of the evening.
After discussions with Cor and correspondence with her father I accepted the offer; my leave was shorted because of this, but the financial consequences were too favourable to refuse it. So we returned to Holland and took our route via Bergen op Zoom, to say goodbye there to the stepson of my brother, who was in garrison there and of whom I had received friendliness in the beginning of my leave.
At my second wedding amongst other things I was given a collossal mirror as a present from papa Polkijn, it came out of his old fashioned house with a high attic at the Kloveniersburgwal, which could not be used in the more modern house at the Weesperzijde; he had it carefully glued on with paper and wrapped in a strong chest for us. I had taken the chest from Batavia to Padang and had not been unpacked yet; I was therefore pleased, that I had to opportunity to lend the unused piece of furniture to family Schnelle. The mirror hung on a dignified spot in their for the rest neatly furnished inner veranda of the high captain’s home and remained there until after my departure.