am I lookin' up at the sky? It is to say to you, 'Nicholas
Nanjivell, the wind is sot in the sou'-west?'"

"Not if you expect me to believe 'ee. 'Tisn' a point off
north-an-by-west."

"--Or," the constable continued, lifting a hand, "is it to say to
you, 'It is sot in the _north-west_,' as the case may be? Or is it I
was wastin' the day in idleness, same as some persons I could mention
in the Force if there wasn' such a thing as discipline? Not so. I
was lookin' up in the execution of my duty. An' what do you suppose
I was lookin' for?"

"I'm sure I can't tell 'ee," answered Nicky-Nan after a painful
effort at guessing. "It couldn' be for obscene language; nor yet for
drunks."

Policeman Rat-it-all leant forward and touched him on the top button
of his waistcoat.

"Zepp-a-lins!" he said mysteriously.

"Eh?"

"Zepp-a-lins!"

"Oh!"--Nicky-Nan's brow cleared--"You mean them German balloon things
the papers make so much fuss about."

"Die-rigitable," added Rat-it-all. "That's the point."

"Well? . . . Have 'ee seen any?" Nicky-Nan lifted his gaze skyward.

"I won't go so far as to say that I've seen anything answerin' to
that description knockin' about--not up to the present. But these
are times when a man must keep his eyes liftin' if he doesn' want Old
England to be taken with what the newspapers call a Bolt from the
Blue."

"I've come across the expression," said Nicky-Nan.

"Well, what I say is, Down here, in this corner of the world--though,
mind you, I'm not sayin' anything against it--you don't _reelise_
things: you reely don't. Now I come from Bodmin, as I think I must
have told you."

"You did."

"Where you see the soldiers goin' about with the stripes down their
trowsers: but they've done away with that except for the Yeomanry
(which is black, or dark blue, I forget which), and that's how you
know the difference. So your mind gets enlarged almost without your
knowin' it, and you feel what's at stake."

"I wonder you didn' want to enlist," said Nicky-Nan.

"I did: but I was too tall--too tall _and_ too strong," sighed the
policeman, bending his arm and causing his biceps to swell up
mountainously. "You haven't a notion how strong I am--if, for
instance, I took it into my head to catch you up and heave you over
the Quay here. Yes, yes, I am wonderfully well made! And on top of
that, Mother picked up some nonsense against soldiering off a speaker
at a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon.