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?"

"Si, senor," replied the Spaniard.

By which it may be gathered that linguistic ability on the