-polished furniture, and plate-glass; but the
office in question was an example of simplicity, for its walls were mud
and its roof corrugated-iron, while the roughness of the interior was
only slightly softened down by a lining of what a carpenter calls
matchboarding. In spite of its vast wealth, Kimberley is still little
better than a moving camp, and holds out few prospects of ever becoming
a magnificent town.

The interior of that newly-created office, allowing for the tapping of
the typewriter and the scratching of the pens, was very quiet; but
outside there was the strange sound produced by the mingling of voices
with trampling feet and the distant whirr and rattle of machinery, till
a clock began striking, followed by the clangour of a bell, and then all
was changed.

"Time!" shouted the manipulator of the typewriter, springing from his
stool to stretch his wiry six feet of length, at the same time spoiling
a keen, manly face by distorting it with a yawn. The clerk who had been
bending over the thick account-book ceased making entries, applied the
blotting-paper, and closed the book with a bang, to turn round and
display a pink-and-white, fat, smooth face, disfigured by nearly white
eyebrows and lashes and curly whitey-brown hair. As he stood up he
yawned and wrinkled his fat face a good deal; but the wrinkles died down
into a smile which gave him a meek and mild appearance, the said smile
being doubled directly after by his taking a little round shaving-glass
out of his desk, propping it up by means of a contrivance behind, and
then, by the help of a pocket-comb, proceeding to rearrange his hair,
which, from the resistance offered, appeared to be full of knots and
kinks.

The last to leave his desk was a manly-looking young fellow who appeared
to be twenty, but who possessed documentary evidence that he was only
eighteen. He neither stretched nor yawned, but drew himself up with a
sigh of relief, and, after carefully locking up the letters he had
written, he turned to the typist.

"Going out, Ingleborough?" he said.

"Yes; I shan't be long. I must go on to the compound. Back in--"

"Five minutes?" dashed in his questioner.

"No; that I shan't," said the young man smartly; "but I will not exceed
fifteen. Get out my rifle and belts, West."

"All right," was the reply, and as the door closed the young clerk
crossed to a plain deal cupboard in the corner of the office, threw open
the broad door, and