The machinery of the Station has hitherto been idle. Its borough officials apparently do nothing but fitfully polish brasses. It seems that these lucky sinecurists only work in times of violent storm, once every few months.
The neighbourhood may be odorous, but it is full of human possibilities. One midnight, two ladies started a scrap. A Special Constable, raw and without experience of militant femininity, blew his police-whistle. The whole slum-district turned out, dressed or half-dressed, like a fevered anthill. It took the regular police half-an-hour to clear the streets, the original cause of tumult vanishing in the swirl. In this neighbourhood, we are informed, it is etiquette to blow a police-whistle only when someone is being "done in."
We were also informed, in discreet whispers, that the "Guv'nor" of the Station "had it in for us." His grievance was this: that while a rival show across the river had been accorded a military picket by the War Office, he had been fobbed off with a mere guard of Special Constables. To date of writing, his wrath still smoulders.
Our hours of duty are filled with dulness, but we live in hopes. That speeding motor-cyclist in the yellow oilskins—is he the mysterious rider who has already shot down a round dozen of our number on lonely beats?
He shuts off power. He stops. He gets off and fumbles with a lamp. Is it a bomb in disguise? Our hands creep towards the truncheons concealed in our trouser-legs. The Hour has struck, and England expects...!
Alas, he is only a belated cyclist, reputable and harmless. We console ourselves with visions of 1915, when we hope to be mobilised, packed off to the Continent in motor-buses, and assigned to beats in Berlin (possibly renamed Berlinogradville City), while the Congress are rearranging the map of Europe.
"Yes, madam, this is Unter den Linden. Straight on and fourth turning to the left for the Siegesallee.... Oui, Monsieur, l'auto de luxe pour Petrograd part à midi.... Nein, mein Herr, es ist verboten. Broadly speaking, alles ist polizeilich verboten. You will be quite safe in assuming that anything you yearn for just now ist strengstens polizeilich verboten. Passen Sie along, bitte!"
"Now then, Tommy—got some good news for me to-night—eh? what?"