He Gleans; Picks The Brains Of Other People, Profits By Their
Mistakes And Improves On Their Ideas.
I know nothing of the social history of Olevano - of its origin, so far
as foreigners are concerned. It is the easiest and the flimsiest thing
in the world to invent; there are so many analogies!
The first foreign resident of Olevano was a retired Anglo-Indian army
officer with unblemished record, Major Frederick Potter. He came across
the place on a trip from Rome, and took a fancy to it. Decent climate.
Passable food. You could pick up a woodcock or two. He was accustomed to
solitude anyhow, all his old friends being dead or buried, or scattered
about the world. He had tried England for a couple of years and
discovered that people there did not like being ordered about as they
should be; they seemed to mind it less, at Olevano. He had always been
something of a pioneer, and the mere fact of being the first "white man"
in the place gave him a kind of fondness for it.
It was he, then, who discovered Olevano - Freddy Potter. We can see him
living alone, wiry and whiskered and cantankerous, glorying in his
solitude up to the fateful day when, to his infinite annoyance, a
fellow-countryman turns up - Mr. Augustus Browne of London. Mr. Browne is
a blameless personality who, enjoying indifferent health, brings an
equally blameless old housekeeper with him. He is not a sportsman like
Potter, but indulges in a pretty taste for landscape painting, with
elaborate flowers and butterflies worked into the foreground.
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