"I have been afraid of this for some time, sir," he said, "very much
afraid."
The superintendent looked at him questioningly.
"You have nothing to say?" he said.
"I have always tried to do my duty, sir."
"I know, I know. But you must see that a certain number of charges,
if not of convictions, is the mark of a smart officer."
"Surely you would not have me arrest innocent persons?"
"That is a most improper observation," said the superintendent
severely. "I will say no more to you now. But I hope you will take
what I have said as a warning. You must bustle along, Bennett, bustle
along."
Outside in the street, Police-constable Bennett was free to reflect
on his unpleasant interview. The superintendent was ambitious and
therefore pompous; he, himself, was unambitious and therefore modest.
Left to himself he might have been content to triumph in the
reflection that he had failed to say a number of foolish things, but
the welfare of his wife and children bound him, tiresomely enough for
a dreamer, tightly to the practical. It was clear that if he did not
forthwith produce signs of his efficiency as a promoter of the peace
that welfare would be imperilled. Yet he did not condemn the chance
that had made him a policeman or even the mischance that brought no
guilty persons to his hands. Rather he looked with a gentle curiosity
into the faces of the people who passed him, and wondered why he
could not detect traces of the generally assumed wickedness of the
neighbourhood.
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