oots. No
hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a
big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear.

"I shook hands with this miracle, and I learned he was the Company's
chief accountant, and that all the bookkeeping was done at this station.
He had come out for a moment, he said, 'to get a breath of fresh air.'
The expression sounded wonderfully odd, with its suggestion of sedentary
desk-life. I wouldn't have mentioned the fellow to you at all, only
it was from his lips that I first heard the name of the man who is
so indissolubly connected with the memories of that time. Moreover, I
respected the fellow. Yes; I respected his collars, his vast cuffs,
his brushed hair. His appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser's
dummy; but in the great demoralization of the land he kept up
his appearance. That's backbone. His starched collars and got-up
shirt-fronts were achievements of character. He had been out nearly
three years; and, later on, I could not help asking him how he managed
to sport such linen. He had just the faintest blush, and said modestly,
'I've been teaching one of the native women about the station. It
was difficult. She had a distaste for the work.' This man had verily
accomplished something. And he was devoted to his books, which were in
apple-pie order.

"Everything else in the station was in a muddle,--heads, things,
buildings. Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and
departed; a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads,
and brass-wire set into the depths of darkness, and in return came a
precious trickle of ivory.

"I had to wait in the station for ten days--an eternity. I lived in a
hut in the yard, but to be out of the chaos I would sometimes get into
the accountant's office. It was built of horizontal planks, and so badly
put together that, as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from
neck to heels with narrow strips of sunlight. There was no need to
open the big shutter to see. It was hot there too; big flies buzzed
fiendishly, and did not sting, but stabbed. I sat generally on the
floor, while, of faultless appearance (and even slightly scented),
perching on a high stool, he wrote, he wrote. Sometimes he stood up for
exercise. When a truckle-bed with a sick man (some invalided agent from
up-country) was put in there, he exhibited a gentle annoyance. 'The
groans of this sick person,' he said, distract my attention.