, walking with strong and measured steps
that resounded upon the cobbles, vague under the shadow of the sheds,
came a man. Waters glanced casually in his direction as he came near,
aware of him merely as in shape that inhabited the darkness, a dim
thing that fitted in with the hour and the furtive street. Then the
man was close to him and visible.

"By gosh!" exclaimed Waters aloud.

It was, of all possible people, "the sergeant with the medals." He
stared at him helplessly.

"Nu!" cried the sergeant heartily. He possessed all that patronizing
geniality which policemen can show to evil-doers, as to colleagues
in another department of the same industry. "You are back again yes?
And how did you find it up there?"

Waters swallowed and hesitated. The sergeant was a vast man, blond as
a straw and bearded like an Assyrian bull, the right shape of man to
wear official buttons. His short sword hung snugly along his leg in
its black, brass-tipped scabbard; his medals, for war-service in the
army, for exemplary conduct, for being alive and in the police at the
time of the Tsar's coronation and so forth, made a bright bar on the
swell of his chest. A worthy and responsible figure; yet the sum of
him was to Waters an offence and a challenge.

He found his tongue. "About the same as you left it, I guess," he
answered unpleasantly.

The big man laughed, standing largely a-straddle with the thumbs of
his gloved hands hooked into his sword-belt. He was rosy as a pippin
and cheery as a host.

"It has done you good," he declared. "For one thing, I can see that
you speak Russian better now oh, much better! It is a fine school. By
and by, we will send you up for six months, and after that nobody
will know you for an Amerikanetz. Ah, you will thank me some day!"

Waters heard him stonily and nodded with meaning.

"You bet I will," he replied. "And when I'm through with you, you'll
know just how grateful I am." The need for words with a taste to them
mastered him. He broke into his own tongue. "You'll get yours, you
big slob!"

"Eh?" The sergeant cocked an ear alertly, "Beek slab? What is that in
Russian?"

"It's your middle name," retorted Waters cryptically and made to move
on.

"Do svidania!" called the sergeant mockingly, raising his voice to a
shout. "Till we meet again! Because I shall be watching you, Votters;
I shall be."

"Here!" Waters wheeled on him, hands withdrawn from his pockets and
cleared for action.

"