ne
Royal Mail, and even him we merely let off with a caution.

Three days ago, by an unfortunate coincidence, William Smith overtook
me at the end of the High Street, just as our sergeant was coming
round the corner in the opposite direction. At sight of the latter we
halted, dropped our parcels in the mud, stiffened to attention and
saluted. The last was a thing we ought not to have done, even allowing
for his leggings, which were (and are still) of a distinctly
upper-military type. But in the special constabulary your sergeant is
a man to be placated. His powers are enormous. He can, if he likes,
spoil your beauty sleep at both ends by detailing you for duty from 12
to 4 A.M.; or, on the other hand, he can forget you altogether for a
fortnight. Thus we always avoid meeting him if possible; failing that,
we always salute him.

"Ha!" exclaimed our sergeant.

We shuddered, and William Smith, who is smaller than myself, tried to
escape his gaze by forming two deep.

"What the devil are you playing at?" growled our sergeant. Though one
of the more prominent sidesmen at our local church, he has developed
quite the manner of an officer, almost, at times, I like to think, of
a general officer. William Smith formed single rank again.

Our sergeant took out his notebook. "I'm glad I happened to meet you
two," he said.

We shivered, but otherwise remained at attention.

"Let me see," he went on, consulting his list, "you are on together
again to-morrow night at 12."

It was the last straw. Forgetting his rank, forgetting his leggings,
forgetting the possibilities of his language, forgetting myself, I
spoke.

"I protest," I said.

The eyes of our sergeant bulged with wrath, pushing his pince-nez off
his nose and causing them to clatter to the pavement. But a special
constable is a man of more than ordinary courage. "Allow me," I
murmured, and I stooped, picked them up and handed them back to him.

"Explain yourself," he muttered hoarsely.

"For the past three months," I said, "I have endured fifty-six of
the darkest hours of the night, cut off from any possibility of
human aid, in the company of William Smith, a conversational
egoist of the lowest and most determined type. Throughout this
period he has inflicted on me atrocities before which those of the
Germans pale into insignificance. During the first month he described
to me in detail the achievements and diseases from birth upwards of
all his children--a rev