might in time have grown annoying. On
the night of our first acquaintance, after we had lain exchanging
random experiences till the evening heat had begun a retreat before the
gentle night breeze, I was awakened from the first doze by my companion
sitting suddenly up in his cot across the room.

"Say, I hope you're not nervous?" he remarked.

"Not immoderately."

"One of my stunts is night-mare," he went on, rising to switch on the
electric light, "and when I get 'em I generally imagine my room-mate is
a burglar trying to go through my junk and--"

He reached under his pillow and brought to light a "Colt's" of 45
caliber; then crossing the room he pointed to three large irregular
splintered holes in the wall some three or four inches above me, and
which I had not already seen simply because I had not chanced to look
that way.

"There's the last three. But I'm tryin' to break myself of 'em," he
concluded, slipping the revolver back under his pillow and turning off
the light again.

Which is among the various reasons why it was without protest that,
with "the Captain's" telephoned consent on the ground that I was now
virtually on the force, I took up my residence in Corozal police
station. 'T is a peaceful little building of the usual Zone type on a
breezy knoll across the railroad, with a spreading tree and a little
well-tended flower plot before it, and the broad world stretching away
in all directions behind. Here lived Policeman T---- and B----.
"First-class policemen" perhaps I should take care to specify, for in
Zone parlance the unqualified noun implies African ancestry. But it
seems easier to use an adjective of color when necessary. Among their
regular duties was that of weighing down the rocking-chairs on the airy
front veranda, whence each nook and cranny of Corozal was in sight, and
of strolling across to greet the train-guard of the seven daily
passengers; though the irregular ones that might burst upon them at any
moment were not unlikely to resemble a Moro expedition in the
Philippines. B---- and I shared the big main room; for T----, being the
haughty station commander, occupied the parlor suite beside the office.
That was all, except the black Trinidadian boy who sat on the wooden
shelf that was his bed behind a huge padlocked door and gazed dreamily
out through the bars--when he was not carrying a bundle to the train
for his wardens or engaged in the janitor duties that kept Corozal
station so s