ay reach
the same results by varying mental routes. This, however, has nothing to
do with the story I am telling here, except inferentially.

It was trial day at headquarters. To be exact, it was the tail end of
trial day at headquarters. The mills of the police gods, which grind not
so slowly but ofttimes exceeding fine, were about done with their
grinding; and as the last of the grist came through the hopper, the last
of the afternoon sunlight came sifting in through the windows at the
west, thin and pale as skim milk. One after another the culprits,
patrolmen mainly, had been arraigned on charges preferred by a superior
officer, who was usually a lieutenant or a captain, but once in a while
an inspector, full-breasted and gold-banded, like a fat blue bumblebee.
In due turn each offender had made his defense; those who were lying
about it did their lying, as a rule, glibly and easily and with a
certain bogus frankness very pleasing to see. Contrary to a general
opinion, the Father of Lies is often quite good to his children. But
those who were telling the truth were frequently shamefaced and mumbling
of speech, making poor impressions.

In due turn, also, each man had been convicted or had been acquitted,
yet all--the proven innocent and the adjudged guilty alike--had
undergone punishment, since they all had to sit and listen to lectures
on police discipline and police manners from the trial deputy. It was
perhaps as well for the peace and good order of the community that the
public did not attend these seances. Those classes now that are the most
thoroughly and most personally governed--the pushcart pedlers, with the
permanent cringing droops in their alien backs; the sinful small boys,
who play baseball in the streets against the statutes made and provided;
the broken old wrecks, who ambush the prosperous passer-by in the
shadows of dark corners, begging for money with which to keep body and
soul together--it was just as well perhaps that none of them was
admitted there to see these large, firm, stern men in uniform wriggling
on the punishment chair, fumbling at their buttons, explaining, whining,
even begging for mercy under the lashing flail of Third Deputy
Commissioner Donohue's sleety judgments.

"The only time old Donny warms up is when he's got a grudge against
you," a wit of headquarters--Larry Magee by name--had said once as he
came forth from the ordeal, brushing imaginary hailstones off his
shoulders. "