some men--just men without any qualifying adjective whatever--
began to get mixed up in the matter; one after another army
lieutenants were detailed to help the thing along, until by and by
they got the right army lieutenant and the right men and the Z. P.
grew to what it is to-day,--not the love, perhaps, but the pride
of every "Zoner" whose name cannot be found on some old "blotter."

There are a number of ways of getting on the force. There is the
broad and general high-way of being appointed in Washington and
shipped down like a nice fresh vegetable in the original package
and delivered just as it left the garden without the pollution of
alien hands. Then there's the big, impressive, broad-shouldered
fellow with some life and military service behind him, and the
papers to prove it, who turns up on the Zone and can't help
getting on if he takes the trouble to climb to headquarters. Or
there are the special cases, like Marley for instance. Marley blew
in one summer day from some uncharted point of the compass with
nothing but his hat and a winning smile on his brassy features,
and naturally soon drifted up the "Thousand Stairs." But Marley
wasn't exactly of that manly build that takes "the Chief" and "the
Captain" by storm; and there were suggestions on his young-old
face that he had seen perhaps a trifle too much of life. So he
wiped the sweat from his brow several times at the third-story
landing only to find as often that the expected vacancy was not
yet. Meanwhile the tropical days slipped idly by and Marley's
"standin" with the owners of I. C. C. hotel-books began to strain
and threaten to break away, and everything sort of gave up the
ghost and died. Everything, that is, except the winning smile.
'Til one afternoon with only that asset left Marley met the
department head on the grass-bordered path in front of the