Carlton-Browne of the F.O.

A prologue details Britain's accidental acquisition of the island Gaillardia during the seventeenth century. The feud between two scions of its royal house and Britain's granting the island self-rule in 1916. The Foreign Office (F.O.) failed to recall its governor, who is still there forty years later. He writes to the F.O. informing them of Russian moves to annex the island's mineral wealth.