They bore little resemblance to what I had expected.  My mental picture of an American policeman was that conglomerate average one unconsciously imbibes from a distant view of our city forces, and by comparison with foreign,—­a heavy-footed, discourteous, half-fanatical, half-irreligious clubber whose wits are as slow as his judgment is honest.  Instead of which I found the Z. P. composed almost without exception of good-hearted, well set up young Americans almost all of military training.  I had anticipated, from other experiences, a constant bickering and a general striving to make life unendurable for a new-comer.  Instead I was constantly surprised at the good fellowship that existed throughout the force.  There were of course some healthy rivalries; there were no angels among them—­or I should have fled the Isthmus much earlier; but for the most part the Z. P. resembled nothing so much as a big 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 native servant and commanded: 

“Juan, va fetch the caballo from the prado and—­and—­oh, saddle and bridle him.  Damn such a language anyway!  I’m sorry I ever learned it.”

This is capped on the Zone by another that is not only true but strikingly typical.  An American boss who had been much annoyed by unforeseen absences of his workmen pounced upon one of his Spaniards one morning crying: 

“When you know por la noche that you’re not going to trabaja por la manana why in—­don’t you habla?”