“And now,” said I, “I want to see your authority.”
“The badge of your ratin’?” Pyecroft added.
“I’m a constable,” he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots would have bewrayed him across half a county’s plough; but boots are not legal evidence.
“I want your authority,” I repeated coldly; “some evidence that you are not a common drunken tramp.”
It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money and consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite trouble to supplement his deficiencies.
“If you don’t believe me, come to Linghurst,” was the burden of his almost national anthem.
“But I can’t run all over Sussex every time a blackmailer jumps up and says he is a policeman.”
“Why, it’s quite close,” he persisted.
“‘Twon’t be--soon,” said Hinchcliffe.
“None of the other people ever made any trouble. To be sure, they was gentlemen,” he cried. “All I can say is, it may be very funny, but it ain’t fair.”
I laboured with him in this dense fog, but to no end. He had forgotten his badge, and we were villains for that we did not cart him to the pub or barracks where he had left it.
They said
"Aren't you the suicide bomber
Who blew up the bus, last year?"
I said "no," they punched me
I said "Think logically"
And they said "You think logically!"
And I said
"What?"
—' 'Suicide Bomber by Tripod.
"What is this, the 'Bad Cop, Retarded Cop' routine?"
