The main road, white under the noon sun, lay broad before us, running north to Linghurst. We slowed and looked anxiously for a side track.
“And now,” said I, “I want to see your authority.”
“The badge of your ratin’?” Pyecroft added.
“I’m a constable,” he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots would have bewrayed him across half a county’s plough; but boots are not legal evidence.
“I want your authority,” I repeated coldly; “some evidence that you are not a common drunken tramp.”
It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money and consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite trouble to supplement his deficiencies.
“If you don’t believe me, come to Linghurst,” was the burden of his almost national anthem.
“But I can’t run all over Sussex every time a blackmailer jumps up and says he is a policeman.”
“Why, it’s quite close,” he persisted.
“’Twon’t be—soon,” said Hinchcliffe.