happy family. Above all I had expected early to make the
acquaintance of "graft," that shifty-eyed monster which we who
have lived in large American cities think of as sitting down to
dinner with the force in every mess-hall. Graft? Why a Zone
Policeman could not ride on a P. R. R. train in full uniform when
off duty without paying his fare, though he was expected to make
arrests if necessary and stop behind with his prisoner. Compared
indeed with almost any other spot on the broad earth's surface
"graft" eats slim meals on the Canal Zone.

The average Zone Policeman would arrest his own brother--which is
after all about the supreme test of good policehood. He is not a
man who likes to keep "blotters," make out accident reports and
such things, that can be of interest only to those with clerks'
and bookkeepers' souls.

He would far rather be battling with sun, man, and vegetation in
the jungle. He is of those who genuinely and frankly have no
desire to become rich, and "successful," a lack of ambition that
formal society cannot understand and fancies a weakness.

I had still another police surprise during these swivel-chair
days. I discovered there was on the Zone a yellow tailor who made
Beau Brummel uniforms at $7.50, compared with which the $5 ready-
made ones were mere clothes. All my life long I had been laboring
under the delusion that a uniform is merely a uniform. But one
lives and learns.

There are few left, I suppose, who have not heard that gray-
bearded story of the American in the Philippines who called his