“I don’t know what you think,” observed the Policeman, “but to my mind this here War gives us a great sense o’ brotherhood.  I read that on the newspaper this mornin’, and it struck me as one o’ the aptest things I’d seen for a long while.”

“You said something o’ the sort last time we met,” answered Nicky-Nan.

“You’re wrong there.”  Rat-it-all seemed to be slightly hurt in his feelings; “because I read it on the paper only this morning.  ‘Against War in the abstrac’ much may be urged,’ it said.  ’But ’oo will deny as it begets a sense o’ Brotherhood if it does nothin’ else?’ That was the expression.”

“I don’t take much truck in this War, for my part,” said Nicky-Nan, quartering on the narrow footpath to let Rat-it-all pass:  “but it’ll do a dam sight else afore we’re through with it, if you want my opinion.”

“To a man in the Force,” said Rat-it-all pensively, “an expression like that, mixed up with photographs in the ‘Daily Mirror,’ strikes HOME.  A man in the Force, as I’ll put it, is in some ways unlike other men.”  He paused to let this sink in.

“Take your time,” said Nicky-Nan.  “But I’m not contradictin’ ’ee.”

“If they’re a species, he’s a specie—­a man set apart, like a parson.  A parson tells you how you ought to behave, and I take you in charge if you don’t.”

“Like Satan,” Nicky-Nan suggested.

“Rat it all!  Not a bit like Satan!” said the Constable angrily.  “You’ve not been followin’.  I never heard so foolish an interruption in all my born days. . . .  What be you carryin’ in that there bundle, makin’ so bold?”

Nicky-Nan felt his heart stand still.  “Just my waskit an’ a few odds an’ ends,” he answered with affected nonchalance.  Forcing himself to meet Rat-it-all’s gaze, and perceiving it to be dreamy rather than suspicious, he added, “What makes ’ee ask?”

“Nothin’, . . . nothin’. . . .  Only you reminded me of a song I used to sing, back in the old days.  It was called ’Off to Philadelphia in the mornin’.’  A beautiful voice I used to have:  tenor.  I shouldn’ wonder if I had it yet; only”—­with a wistful sigh—­“in the Force you got to put that sort o’ thing behind you, . . . which brings me back to what I was saying.  In an ordinary way, a police-constable’s life is like a parson’s:  they see more’n most men o’ what’s goin’ on, but they don’t belong to it.  You can’t properly hobnob with a chap that, like as not, you’ll be called on to marry or bury to-morra, nor stand him a drink—­nor be stood—­when, quite as like, next time you’ll be servin’ a summons.  There’s a Jane on both sides.”

“A who?”