“Come now,” returned Giles, “you must admit that I have fewer of these discomforts than most men of the force, owing, no doubt, to little men being unable to reach so high—and, d’you know, it’s the little men who do most damage in life; they’re such a pugnacious and perverse generation! As to swelled noses, these are the fortune of war, at least of civil war like ours—and black eyes, why, my eyes are black by nature. If they were of a heavenly blue like yours, Molly, you might have some ground for complaint when they are blackened.”
“And then there is such dreadful tear and wear of clothes,” continued Molly; “just look at that, now!” She held up to view a sock with a hole in its heel large enough to let an orange through.
“Why, Molly, do you expect that I can walk the streets of London from early morning till late at night, protect life and property, and preserve public tranquillity, as this little book puts it, besides engaging in numerous scuffles and street rows without making a hole or two in my socks?”
“Ah! Giles, if you had only brain enough to take in a simple idea! it’s not the making of holes that I complain of. It is the making of such awfully big ones before changing your socks! There now, don’t let us get on domestic matters. You have no head for these, but tell me something about your little book. I am specially interested in it, you see, because the small policeman in the crib over there puts endless questions about his duties which I am quite unable to answer, and, you know, it is a good thing for a child to grow up with the idea that father and mother know everything.”
“Just so, Molly. I hope you’ll tell your little recruit that the first and foremost duty of a good policeman is to obey orders. Let me see, then, if I can enlighten you a bit.”
“But tell me first, Giles—for I really want to know—how many are there of you altogether, and when was the force established on its present footing, and who began it, and, in short, all about it. It’s so nice to have you for once in a way for a quiet chat like this.”
“You have laid down enough of heads, Molly, to serve for the foundation of a small volume. However, I’ll give it you hot, since you wish it, and I’ll begin at the end instead of the beginning. What would you say, now, to an army of eleven thousand men?”
“I would say it was a very large one, though I don’t pretend to much knowledge about the size of armies,” said Molly, commencing to mend another hole about the size of a turnip.
“Well, that, in round numbers, is the strength of the Metropolitan Police force at the present time—and not a man too much, let me tell you, for what with occasional illnesses and accidents, men employed on special duty, and men off duty—as I am just now—the actual available strength of the force at any moment is considerably below that number. Yes, it is a goodly army of picked and stalwart men, (no self-praise intended), but, then, consider what we have to do.”
“We have to guard and keep in order the population of the biggest city in the world; a population greater than that of the whole of Scotland.”