ndon from
early morning till late at night, protect life and property, and
preserve public tranquillity, as this little book puts it, besides
engaging in numerous scuffles and street rows without making a hole or
two in my socks?"

"Ah! Giles, if you had only brain enough to take in a simple idea! it's
not the making of holes that I complain of. It is the making of such
awfully big ones before changing your socks! There now, don't let us
get on domestic matters. You have no head for these, but tell me
something about your little book. I am specially interested in it, you
see, because the small policeman in the crib over there puts endless
questions about his duties which I am quite unable to answer, and, you
know, it is a good thing for a child to grow up with the idea that
father and mother know everything."

"Just so, Molly. I hope you'll tell your little recruit that the first
and foremost duty of a good policeman is to obey orders. Let me see,
then, if I can enlighten you a bit."

"But tell me first, Giles--for I really want to know--how many are there
of you altogether, and when was the force established on its present
footing, and who began it, and, in short, all about it. It's _so_ nice
to have you for once in a way for a quiet chat like this."

"You have laid down enough of heads, Molly, to serve for the foundation
of a small volume. However, I'll give it you hot, since you wish it,
and I'll begin at the end instead of the beginning. What would you say,
now, to an army of eleven thousand men?"

"I would say it was a very large one, though I don't pretend to much
knowledge about the size of armies," said Molly, commencing to mend
another hole about the size of a turnip.

"Well, that, in round numbers, is the strength of the Metropolitan
Police force at the present time--and not a man too much, let me tell
you, for what with occasional illnesses and accidents, men employed on
special duty, and men off duty--as I am just now--the actual available
strength of the force at any moment is considerably below that number.
Yes, it is a goodly army of picked and stalwart men, (no self-praise
intended), but, then, consider what we have to do."

"We have to guard and keep in order the population of the biggest city
in the world; a population greater than that of the whole of Scotland."

"Oh! of course, you are sure to go to Scotland for your illustrations,
as if there was no such place as England in the wo