was telling this gentleman I saw him in the Broadway,—­well, now it’s about an hour since, perhaps a little more.  I was coming on duty when I saw a crowd in front of the District Railway Station,—­and there was the Arab, having a sort of argument with the cabman.  He had a great bundle on his head, five or six feet long, perhaps longer.  He wanted to take this great bundle with him into the cab, and the cabman, he didn’t see it.’

‘You didn’t wait to see him drive off.’

’No,—­I hadn’t time.  I was due at the station,—­I was cutting it pretty fine as it was.’

‘You didn’t speak to him,—­or to the cabman?’

’No, it wasn’t any business of mine you understand.  The whole thing just caught my eye as I was passing.’

‘And you didn’t take the cabman’s number?’

’No, well, as far as that goes it wasn’t needful.  I know the cabman, his name and all about him, his stable’s in Bradmore.’

I whipped out my note-book.

‘Give me his address.’

’I don’t know what his Christian name is, Tom, I believe, but I’m not sure.  Anyhow his surname’s Ellis and his address is Church Mews, St John’s Road, Bradmore,—­I don’t know his number, but any one will tell you which is his place, if you ask for Four-Wheel Ellis,—­that’s the name he’s known by among his pals because of his driving a four-wheeler.’

‘Thank you, officer.  I am obliged to you.’  Two half-crowns changed hands.  ’If you will keep an eye on the house and advise me at the address which you will find on my card, of any thing which takes place there during the next few days, you will do me a service.’

We had clambered back into the hansom, the driver was just about to start, when the constable was struck by a sudden thought.

’One moment, sir,—­blessed if I wasn’t going to forget the most important bit of all.  I did hear him tell Ellis where to drive him to,—­he kept saying it over and over again, in that queer lingo of his.  “Waterloo Railway Station, Waterloo Railway Station.”  “All right,” said Ellis, “I’ll drive you to Waterloo Railway Station right enough, only I’m not going to have that bundle of yours inside my cab.  There isn’t room for it, so you put it on the roof.”  “To Waterloo Railway Station,” said the Arab, “I take my bundle with me to Waterloo Railway Station,—­I take it with me.”  “Who says you don’t take it with you?” said Ellis.  “You can take it, and twenty more besides, for all I care, only you don’t take it inside my cab,—­put it on the roof.”  “I take it with me to Waterloo Railway Station,” said the Arab, and there they were, wrangling and jangling, and neither seeming to be able to make out what the other was after, and the people all laughing.’

‘Waterloo Railway Station,—­you are sure that was what he said?’

’I’ll take my oath to it, because I said to myself, when I heard it, “I wonder what you’ll have to pay for that little lot, for the District Railway Station’s outside the four-mile radius."’ As we drove off I was inclined to ask myself, a little bitterly—­and perhaps unjustly—­if it were not characteristic of the average London policeman to almost forget the most important part of his information,—­at any rate to leave it to the last and only to bring it to the front on having his palm crossed with silver.