--perhaps because they were both different from other people. But,
anyhow, from what I know of Bathurst I believe him to be a very
fine character, though there is certainly an amount of reserve
about him altogether unusual. At any rate, the service is a gainer
by it. I never knew a fellow work so indefatigably. He will take
a very high place in the service before he has done."

"I am not so sure of that," the other said. "He is a man with
opinions of his own, and all sorts of crotchets and fads. He has
been in hot water with the Chief Commissioner more than once. When
I was over at Lucknow last I was chatting with two or three men,
and his name happened to crop up, and one of them said, 'Bathurst
is a sort of knight errant, an official Don Quixote. Perhaps the best
officer in the province in some respects, but hopelessly impracticable.'"

"Yes, that I can quite understand, Garnet. That sort of man is never
popular with the higher official, whose likings go to the man who
does neither too much nor too little, who does his work without
questioning, and never thinks of making suggestions, and is a mere
official machine. Men of Bathurst's type, who go to the bottom of
things, protest against what they consider unfair decisions, and
send in memorandums showing that their superiors are hopelessly
ignorant and idiotically wrong, are always cordially disliked.
Still, they generally work their way to the front in the long run.
Well, I must be off."

Bathurst rode to Narkeet without drawing rein. His horse at times
slackened its pace on its own accord, but an almost mechanical motion
from its rider's heel soon started it off again at the rapid pace
at which its rider ordinarily traveled. From the time he left