“Which is the way towards Bloomsbury, please?  I can’t find a taxi.”  The man looked at her, and took time to think it over; then he said: 

“They’re linin’ up for the theatres,” and looked at her again.  Something seemed to move in his mechanism: 

“I’m goin’ that way, miss.  If you like, you can step along with me.”  Noel stepped along.

“The streets aren’t what they ought to be,” the policeman said.  “What with the darkness, and the war turning the girls heads—­you’d be surprised the number of them that comes out.  It’s the soldiers, of course.”

Noel felt her cheeks burning.

“I daresay you wouldn’t have noticed it,” the policeman went on:  “but this war’s a funny thing.  The streets are gayer and more crowded at night than I’ve ever seen them; it’s a fair picnic all the time.  What we’re goin’ to settle down to when peace comes, I don’t know.  I suppose you find it quiet enough up your way, miss?”

“Yes,” said Noel; “quite quiet.”

“No soldiers up in Bloomsbury.  You got anyone in the Army, miss?”

Noel nodded.

“Ah!  It’s anxious times for ladies.  What with the Zeps, and their brothers and all in France, it’s ‘arassin’.  I’ve lost a brother meself, and I’ve got a boy out there in the Garden of Eden; his mother carries on dreadful about him.  What we shall think of it when it’s all over, I can’t tell.  These Huns are a wicked tough lot!”

Noel looked at him; a tall man, regular and orderly, with one of those perfectly decent faces so often seen in the London police.

“I’m sorry you’ve lost someone,” she said.  “I haven’t lost anyone very near, yet.”

“Well, let’s ’ope you won’t, miss.  These times make you feel for others, an’ that’s something.  I’ve noticed a great change in folks you’d never think would feel for anyone.  And yet I’ve seen some wicked things too; we do, in the police.  Some of these English wives of aliens, and ‘armless little German bakers, an’ Austrians, and what-not:  they get a crool time.  It’s their misfortune, not their fault, that’s what I think; and the way they get served—­well, it makes you ashamed o’ bein’ English sometimes—­it does straight:  And the women are the worst.  I said to my wife only last night, I said:  ‘They call themselves Christians,’ I said, ’but for all the charity that’s in ’em they might as well be Huns.’  She couldn’t see it-not she!’ Well, why do they drop bombs?’ she says.  ‘What!’ I said, ’those English wives and bakers drop bombs?  Don’t be silly,’ I said.  ‘They’re as innocent as we.’  It’s the innocent that gets punished for the guilty.  ‘But they’re all spies,’ she says.  ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘old lady!  Now really!  At your time of life!’ But there it is; you can’t get a woman to see reason.  It’s readin’ the papers.  I often think they must be written by women—­beggin’ your pardon, miss—­but reely, the ’ysterics and the ’atred—­they’re a fair knockout.  D’you find much hatred in your household, miss?”