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Title: Officer And Man
1901

Author: Louis Becke

Release Date: April 12, 2008 [EBook #25060]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OFFICER AND MAN ***

Produced by David Widger

OFFICER AND MAN

From "The Tapu Of Banderah and Other Stories"

By Louis Becke

C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.

1901

The anchor of her Majesty's ship _Hannibal_ was underfoot and the
captain on the bridge, and Rear-Admiral Garnet had shaken hands with
the last of the "leading" Fijian white residents, who always did the
welcoming and farewelling when distinguished persons visited Levuka,
when Lieutenant Bollard approached him and intimated that "a person"
from the shore had just come alongside in a boat and desired to see "his
Excellency on private and important business."

"What the devil does the fellow want?" said the Admiral irascibly, not
a whit softened by the "his Excellency" style of address; "I'm going on
the bridge, and can't see any one now; we can't delay the ship and get
into a mess going through the passage."

"Told him so, sir; but he says he wants to see you upon an important--a
most pressing matter."

"Oh, well! Confound him! Let the sentry show him to my cabin, and tell
Captain Bracely I shall be up in five minutes."

The "person," conducted by the sentry, was shown into the cabin, where
the Admiral, without taking a seat or offering one to his visitor,
inquired with a cold, cautious politeness born of much experience of
island visitors with "important and private Service matters of great
urgency," what he might be pleased to want?

The stranger was a short, fat, coarse-looking man with little pig-like
eyes and scanty tufts of black beard and whiskers growing in irregular
patches on his cheeks and chin, like clumps of gorse on clayey banks.
He was dressed--in a manner--in an ill-fitting black cloth suit imported
from Sydney. His hair was very black and shiny, plastered down over
his temples and beautifully parted at the back of his bullet head.
Altogether he was an unpleasantly sleek, oleaginous creature, and as
he stood bo