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.