and either join the crowd or vanish. The two policemen
and the crew of the motor-bus have now met in parley. The conductor and
the driver have an air at once nervous and resigned; their gestures are
quick and vivacious. The policemen, on the other hand, indicate by their
slow and huge movements that eternity is theirs. And they could not be
more sure of the conductor and the driver if they had them manacled and
leashed. The conductor and the driver admit the absolute dominion of the
elephantine policemen; they admit that before the simple will of the
policemen inconvenience, lost minutes, shortened leisure, docked wages,
count as less than naught. And the policemen are carelessly sublime,
well knowing that magistrates, jails, and the very Home Secretary on his
throne--yes, and a whole system of conspiracy and perjury and
brutality--are at their beck in case of need. And yet occasionally in
the demeanour of the policemen towards the conductor and the driver
there is a silent message that says: "After all, we, too, are working
men like you, over-worked and under-paid and bursting with grievances in
the service of the pitiless and dishonest public. We, too, have wives
and children and privations and frightful apprehensions. We, too, have
to struggle desperately. Only the awful magic of these garments and of
the garter which we wear on our wrists sets an abyss between us and
you." And the conductor writes and one of the policemen writes, and they
keep on writing, while the traffic makes beautiful curves to avoid them.

The still increasing crowd continues to stare in the pure blankness of
pleasure. A close-shaved, well-dressed, middle-aged man, with a copy of
_The Sportsman_ in his podgy hand, who has descended from the motor-bus,
starts stamping his feet. "I was knocked down by a taxi last year," he
says fiercely. "But nobody took no notice of _that_! Are they going to
stop here all the blank morning for a blank tyke?" And for all his
respectable appearance, his features become debased, and he emits a jet
of disgusting profanity and brings most of the Trinity into the
thunderous assertion that he has paid his fare. Then a man passes
wheeling a muck-cart. And he stops and talks a long time with the other
uniforms, because he, too, wears vestiges of a uniform. And the crowd
never moves nor ceases to stare. Then the new arrival stoops and picks
up the unclaimed, masterless puppy, and flings it, all soft and
yielding, into the