acquaintance, as sheltered from the keen wind I began to load my
briar. "Very inconvenient I've always thought it for a gentleman who
gets about as much as you do."

"That's why I like it," I explained. "If I lived anywhere accessible I
should never get a moment's peace, you see. At the same time I have to
be within an hour's journey of Fleet Street."

I often stopped for a chat at this point and I was acquainted with
most of the men of P. division on whom the duty devolved from time to
time. It was a lonely spot at night when the residents in the
neighborhood had retired, so that the darkened houses seemed to
withdraw yet farther into the gardens separating them from the
highroad. A relic of the days when trains and motor-buses were not,
dusk restored something of an old-world atmosphere to the village
street, disguising the red brick and stucco which in many cases had
displaced the half-timbered houses of the past. Yet it was possible in
still weather to hear the muted bombilation of the sleepless city and
when the wind was in the north to count the hammer-strokes of the
great bell of St. Paul's.

Standing in the shelter of the little hut, I listened to the rain
dripping from over-reaching branches and to the gurgling of a turgid
little stream which flowed along the gutter near my feet whilst now
and again swift gusts of the expiring tempest would set tossing the
branches of the trees which lined the way.

"It's much cooler to-night," said the sergeant.

I nodded, being in the act of lighting my pipe. The storm had