olice law and
the routine work of the force.

As they progress they are taken to the Black Museum at Scotland Yard,
where they are given a practical demonstration of the kind of tools
criminals use--from scientific and complicated oxygen and acetylene
apparatus, used to break into safes, to the simple but efficacious
walking-stick to which may be attached a bird-limed piece of wood for
lifting coins off a shelf behind a shop or public-house counter.

So for eight weeks the candidate is taught the manner of work he will
have to perform. He is given every opportunity to prove himself capable,
but at any time he may be courteously told that he is not fitted for the
work; 15 or 20 per cent. of the candidates are rejected for one reason
or another before their term is over.

But, thorough as the training is, no constable is considered fully
qualified when he is drafted from Peel House to a division. Tuition,
both theoretical and practical, still goes on while he is a unit in the
station. He goes out with an older man to see how things are done, to
learn his "beat" or "patrol." There is a class-room at the big police
stations where his education is carried on. For a period too, he must
attend an L.C.C. evening school. And at last he becomes a unit ranked
efficient in the critical and criticised blue-coated army of which he is
a member.[3]

FOOTNOTE:

[3] Peel House during the war has been temporarily converted into a club
for overseas soldiers.

CHAPTER X.

IN A POLICE STATION.

Ten o'clock at night, and the West End.

In a back street a lonely blue lamp twinkled, a symbol of law and order
placed high above the door of the police station. The street itself was
appallingly quiet and gloomy. Yet a few hundred yards away the radiantly
lighted main thoroughfares seethed with thousands of London's pleasure
seekers, and an incessant stream of cabs and motor cars flowed to and
from restaurants and theatres.

Here were men and women in search of pleasure and excitement, and other
men and women on the alert for opportunities of roguery that might
present themselves amid the stir of gaiety. There were the "sad, gay
girls" sitting in the night cafes and strolling the streets.
Pickpockets, beggars, and blackmailers were mingled with the crowds. A
little later and unwise diners would begin to come unsteadily into the
streets.

The West End, as the police know, is always pregnant with possibilities.
And things usual