"
"If he has, I am certain it is nothing to his personal disadvantage,"
Mr. Hunter said warmly. "I have known him for the last six years--
I won't say very well, for I don't think anyone does that, except,
perhaps, Doctor Wade. When there was a wing of the regiment up
here three years ago he and Bathurst took to each other very much
--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.
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