The Old Mans Bag | Page 4

jam on it. And when he had finished eating he knocked again very loudly at the door.
"Go away," said the old man. "My wife is not coming out with you to-day."
"I don't want your wife to come out with me," said the person at the door; "I have called to look at the gas meter."
"We haven't got a gas meter now," said the old man, "we burn nothing but electric light."
"Many, many thanks," said the person at the door, and he went away.
"I feel all of a flutter," said the old woman, sinking into a chair.
"So do I," said the old man. "And he has got my sixpence too."
CHAPTER VI.
In a little while the old woman began to put the breakfast things away. Afterwards she took up the table-cover and went out into the garden with it to shake off the bread crumbs. As she stepped out of the door who should step in but the red policeman. The old woman trembled very much when she saw him go in, and she shook the table-cover several times over in order that she might think what to say to the red policeman. Just then it began to rain. The old woman ran into the house at once.
[Illustration: Who should step in but the red policeman.]
"Good morning, madam," said the red policeman, and he made a nice bow.
"Good morning, sir," said the old woman. "What, might I ask, brings you here?"
"I have called, madam," replied the red policeman, making another bow, "for the purpose of taking you with me to prison for stealing a roll of butter."
"Where is the roll of butter?" said the old woman.
The policeman looked very hard at the butter dish, but there was no butter on it. The old man and his wife and the gas-man had eaten it all.
"I beg your pardon, I am sure," said the policeman.
"The idea!" said the old woman. "Besides you said you would not call this morning unless the weather were fine, and you see for yourself that it is now raining cats and dogs."
"I am truly sorry, madam," said the policeman, bowing once more. "When I come to think of it, I did say that I would not call if it rained. Pray forgive me. We all make mistakes sometimes, you know."
"I don't like such mistakes," said the old woman. "Now kindly leave the house."
"Oh, please don't turn me out," said the red policeman, "it is raining very hard indeed, and I might get my feet wet."
"We should always be kind," said the old woman, "even to policemen, and as it is raining and I left my umbrella in an omnibus the other day, I will lend you my sunshade. But please go."
The old woman put the sunshade into the policeman's hand. He looked at it very hard.
"It is a blue one," he said. "It is not fashionable to wear a blue sunshade with a red suit. Thank you all the same, but I think I will go without it."
He went.
The old man, who had been quietly laughing to himself, danced about with joy when he saw the policeman leave. Then he ran to the window and put his head out, and called out after the policeman, "I say. When your clothes are quite wet enough be sure you come back and have them dried."
But the red policeman took no notice of him.
CHAPTER VII.
The red policeman got so wet that by the time he reached his house all the dye had come out of his suit. He felt very angry indeed.
"I must try not to make mistakes," he said, "sometimes they bring one into fearful trouble. As my suit is spoilt I think I will give up being a policeman. A policeman without a suit is no good at all."
So he went to bed and had hot bricks to his feet and a mustard plaster on his chest, and sent for the tailor to measure him for a new suit of clothes.
When the tailor came the policeman said to him, "I am quite tired of being a policeman, and I think I should now like to be a soldier. Please measure me for a soldier's suit. The coat you will make of green cloth and the trousers must be yellow."
[Illustration: "Please measure me for a soldier's suit."]
"But," said the tailor, "soldiers wear scarlet coats and blue trousers."
"That is just the point," said the policeman. "I don't want to be like all the others. If I did I should go in for khaki. Just you do what I tell you, and make me a green coat and yellow trousers at once."
The tailor said, "Yes, sir," and went away.
In a few days he called again, bringing with him a yellow coat and green trousers. The policeman could have cried with disappointment.
"Didn't I tell