Almayer had left his home with a light heart and a lighter pocket,
speaking English well, and strong in arithmetic; ready to conquer the
world, never doubting that he would.

After those twenty years, standing in the close and stifling heat of a
Bornean evening, he recalled with pleasurable regret the image of Hudig's
lofty and cool warehouses with their long and straight avenues of gin
cases and bales of Manchester goods; the big door swinging noiselessly;
the dim light of the place, so delightful after the glare of the streets;
the little railed-off spaces amongst piles of merchandise where the
Chinese clerks, neat, cool, and sad-eyed, wrote rapidly and in silence
amidst the din of the working gangs rolling casks or shifting cases to a
muttered song, ending with a desperate yell. At the upper end, facing
the great door, there was a larger space railed off, well lighted; there
the noise was subdued by distance, and above it rose the soft and
continuous clink of silver guilders which other discreet Chinamen were
counting and piling up under the supervision of Mr. Vinck, the cashier,
the genius presiding in the place--the right hand of the Master.

In that clear space Almayer worked at his table not far from a little
green painted door, by which always stood a Malay in a red sash and
turban, and whose hand, holding a small string dangling from above, moved
up and down with the regularity of a machine. The string worked a punkah
on the other side of the green door, where the so-called private office
was, and where old Hudig--the Master--sat enthroned, holding noisy
receptions. Sometimes the little door would fly open disclosing to the
outer world, through the bluish haze of tobacco smoke, a long table
loaded with bottles of various shapes and tall water-pitchers, rattan
easy-chairs occupied by noisy men in sprawling attitudes, while the
Master would put his head through and, holding by the handle, would grunt