equired of me.
While at East London I had worked every day at a copy-book, striving to
improve my handwriting, but my fingers were more at home with the
trigger and the pick than with the pen. Moreover, my spelling was
phonetic and wonderful. Although I knew most of Shakespeare's sonnets
by heart, I did not know a single rule of English grammar. This
ignorance has remained with me to the present day, but I cannot say I
feel it much of a handicap. However, there was no examination to pass,
and my chief would have to put up with my shortcomings for the present.
I had faced lions on the Lebomba and crocodiles in the Komati; why
should I quail before a mere magistrate?

It may be advisable to explain how my appointment came to be offered.
My father and the then Lord Carnarvon, who happened to be Colonial
Secretary, had been friends in the old days. Lord Carnarvon wrote to
Government House, Cape Town, asking that something might be done for
us. My father was beyond the age-limit; I, clearly, was not.
Responsible Government had arrived; nevertheless, a certain amount of
informal patronage was still occasionally exercised.

Thus it was that I, after a strange and varied apprenticeship in some
of the roughest of life's workshops, became cogged down as a little
wheel in that clumsy, expensive, and circumlocutory mill, which,
consuming much grist but producing little meal, is still believed to be
an indispensable adjunct to our civilization.

Here I must break off. But my reminiscences are by no means complete;
some day and I trust before very long they will be brought up to date.

Whether or not the supplementary volume will reach the printer's hands,
depends on how far the public becomes interested in the work of which I
am now writing the last words of the closing chapter.

After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that so long
as the official collar galls my neck, I cannot adequately deal with the
period during which I have been a public servant; I would have to walk
too delicately. [I have since modified this decision.] For one of the
disadvantages of being in the public service lies in the circumstance
that it is impossible to speak or write of experiences gained therein,
without embarrassing reserve.

But the days of my retirement are rapidly drawing nigh; when they
arrive, and the collar drops, I shall have much to say about many
things, for my life as a public servant during six-and-thirty years ha