Plain Tales from the Hills 33 - Wressley Of The Foreign Office

In which the austere officialdom of Anglo-India is embodied in Wressley of the Foreign Office, a man whose vast erudition and diligence on native states gain him wide if anonymous respect, until his heart is unexpectedly captured by a flippant young lady whose trivial amusement shatters his ambitions. The tale gently unfolds the poignant irony of great labour rendered vain by misplaced devotion, leaving Wressley a broken figure amid the dusty records of empire.