"Now look 'ere, 'Earty," he remarked, "you got to be pretty bloomin' careful what yer up to, or yer'll get run in. Yer'd look sort o' tasty with me a-shovin' of yer from be'ind in me new uniform, a bit in each 'and and the rest round me arm. S' long! an' don't yer forget it. No late nights. No carryin's on with the choir." And Bindle winked knowingly at Smith and the boy.
Bindle's popularity among his brother special constables was instantaneous and complete. They were for the most part sent out in pairs. "'untin' in couples," Bindle called it. The man who got Bindle as a companion considered himself lucky.
If Bindle saw a pair of lovers saying good-night, he would go up to them gravely and demand what they were doing, and warn them as to their proper course of conduct.
"There ain't goin' to be no kissin' on my beat," he would remark, "only wot I does meself. Why ain't you in the army, young feller?"
He never lost an opportunity of indulging his sense of the ludicrous, and he soon became known to many of those whose property it was his duty to protect. From servant-girls he came in for many dainties, and it was not long before he learnt that the solitary special gets more attention from the other sex than the one who "'unts in couples." As a consequence Bindle became an adept at losing his fellow-constable. "I can lose a special quicker than most chaps can lose a flea," he remarked once to Mrs. Bindle.
One night, about half-past nine, when on duty alone on Putney Hill, Bindle saw a man slip down one of the turnings on the left-hand side, as if desirous of avoiding observation. A moment after he heard a soft whistle. Grasping his truncheon in his right hand, Bindle slid into the shadow of the high wall surrounding a large house. A few minutes later he heard another whistle.
"'Ullo," he muttered, "shouldn't be surprised if there wasn't somethink on. Now, Joe B., for the V.C. or a pauper's grave."
Creeping stealthily along under the shadow of the wall, he came close up to the man without being observed. Just as he gave vent to the third whistle Bindle caught him by the arm.
"Now then, young feller, wot's all this about? I 'eard you. 'Oly Angels!" Bindle exclaimed in astonishment, "where did you spring from, sir?"
It was Dick Little.