The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Veldt Official, by Bertram Mitford

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Title: A Veldt Official
A Novel of Circumstance

Author: Bertram Mitford

Illustrator: Stanley L. Wood

Release Date: June 20, 2010 [EBook #32922]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VELDT OFFICIAL ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

A Veldt Official, by Bertram Mitford.

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A VELDT OFFICIAL, BY BERTRAM MITFORD.

CHAPTER ONE.

"WHERE'S DOPPERSDORP?"

"Now where the very mischief _is_ Doppersdorp?"

He who thus uttered his thoughts aloud looked up from the sheet of paper
in his hand, and gazed forth over the blue waters of Algoa Bay. Over
the vessels riding at their anchorage his gaze wandered, over the
stately hulls of two or three large mail steamships similar to that upon
whose deck he then stood; over the tall, tapering masts and web-like
rigging of numerous sailing craft; over the flotilla of cargo-boats and
lighters; over the low, sandy shores and sunbaked buildings of busy,
dusty Port Elizabeth, right away to the bold ridges of the Winterhoek
range looming black and hazy to the blue heavens; then returned to
re-peruse the large official communication. Thus it began:--

Sir,--I have the honour to inform you that His Excellency the Governor,
with the advice of the Executive Council, has been pleased to appoint
you to be--provisionally--clerk to the Resident Magistrate of
Doppersdorp, and distributer of stamps... Then followed particulars as
to salary, and, with the request that the recipient would be good enough
to proceed to that place as soon as possible, somebody whose name he
could not quite decipher, but whose style was "Acting Under Colonial
Secretary," had the honour to be his obedient servant.

The letter was dated from the Colonial Secretary's Office, and was
directed to "Roden Musgrave, Esq."

"The pay is not profuse," soliloquised the fortunate recipient of this
missive, "especially to make a fresh start upon at my time of life.