Ginx's baby had been discovered by a policeman swaddled in a
penny paper, distressingly familiar to metropolitan travellers by
rail. To omit the details of his treatment at the hands of that
great institution, "The Force," would be invidious. The member
thereof who fell in with him was walking a back street, sighting
doors with his bull's-eye. He was provided with massive boots,
so that a thief could hear him coming a hundred yards off; he was
personally tall and unwieldy, and a dexterous commissioner had
invented a dress designed to enhance these qualities--a heavy
coat, a cart-horse belt, and a round cape. He had been carefully
drilled not to walk more than three miles an hour. He was not a
little startled when the rays of his lamp fell upon a struggling
newspaper, out of which, as from a shell, came mysterious cries.
He took up a corner of the paper and peeped in upon the face of
Ginx's Baby; then he occupied a quarter of an hour in
embarrassing reflections. A nearly naked child crying in the
cold ought to be housed as soon as possible, but X 99 was ON HIS
BEAT, and those magic words chained him to certain limits. This,
of course, was the rule under a former commissioner, and every
one knows that such absurd strategy has been abolished in the
existing regime. At that time, however, each watchman had his
beat, to leave which was neglect of duty, except with a prisoner,
and then it was neglect of all the householders within the magic
compass. Had X 99 heard the baby crying across the street, which
was part of the beat of X 101, he would have passed on with a
cheery heart, for the case would have been beyond his
jurisdiction. Unhappily the baby was on his beat, and he was
delivered from the temptation of transferring it to the other by
the appearance of X 101's bull's-eye not far off. What was he to