A Veldt Official. Mitford Bertram

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       Bertram Mitford

      A Veldt Official

      A Novel of Circumstance

      Published by Good Press, 2021

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066190309

Table of Contents

       "A Veldt Official"

       Chapter One.

       Chapter Two.

       Chapter Three.

       Chapter Four.

       Chapter Five.

       Chapter Six.

       Chapter Seven.

       Chapter Eight.

       Chapter Nine.

       Chapter Ten.

       Chapter Eleven.

       Chapter Twelve.

       Chapter Thirteen.

       Chapter Fourteen.

       Chapter Fifteen.

       Chapter Sixteen.

       Chapter Seventeen.

       Chapter Eighteen.

       Chapter Nineteen.

       Chapter Twenty.

       Chapter Twenty One.

       Chapter Twenty Two.

       Chapter Twenty Three.

       Chapter Twenty Four.

       Chapter Twenty Five.

       Chapter Twenty Six.

       Chapter Twenty Seven.

       Chapter Twenty Eight.

       Chapter Twenty Nine.

       Chapter Thirty.

       Chapter Thirty One.

       Chapter Thirty Two.

       Chapter Thirty Three.

       Chapter Thirty Four.

       Chapter Thirty Five.

"A Veldt Official"

       Table of Contents

Chapter One.

       Table of Contents

      “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. Well, the old saw about beggars and choosers holds good, but—where the very deuce is Doppersdorp?”

      “Hallo, Musgrave! Had ten thousand a year left you?” cried a jolly, hail-the-maintop sort of voice behind him.

      Its owner was a powerfully built man of middle age, whose handsome face, bronzed and bearded, was lit up by a pair of keen brown eyes with a merry twinkle in them which was more than half satirical. He was clad in a dark blue, gold-laced, quasi-naval uniform.

      “You