My own grandson much desired to clean the roads,
because, as he pointed out, the men ordained for that job do little but
play about and smoke and spit and watch the traffic and pass the time of
day with one another. He also learned that they got three pounds a week of
public money for their fun, and half-holidays of a Saturday, so to his
youthful mind it seemed a likely calling.
But most often the ambitions of the human boys be like to change if their
parents get much luck in the world, so when you see a steadfast creature,
like Samuel Borlase, answer the call in his heart almost so soon as he can
walk and talk, you feel the rare event worth setting down.
When he was four year old (at any rate, so his mother will take her oath
upon) Sam said he'd be a policeman, and at twenty-four year old a
policeman he became. What's more, chance ordained that he should follow
his high calling in the village where he was born, and though the general
opinion is that a lad, who goes into the civil forces, be like to perform
better away from his surroundings, where he was just a common object of
the countryside with none of the dignities of the law attaching to him,
yet in this case it fell out otherwise and Borlase left home to become a
policeman and in due course returned, the finished article.
Naturally with such a history behind him and the ambition of a lifetime to
fall back upon, the authorities found no difficulty with Samuel, because
he had a policeman's mind and a policeman's bearing and outlook upon life
from his youth up.
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