POLICEMAN AND THE COOK.
A FIRST WORD FOR MYSELF.
BEFORE the doctor left me one evening, I asked him how much longer I was likely to live.

He answered: "It's not easy to say; you may die before I can get back to you in the morning, or you may live to the end of the month." I was alive enough on the next morning to think of the needs of my soul, and (being a member of the Roman Catholic Church) to send for the priest.
The history of my sins, related in confession, included blameworthy neglect of a duty which I owed to the laws of my country.

In the priest's opinion--and I agreed with him--I was bound to make public acknowledgment of my fault, as an act of penance becoming to a Catholic Englishman.

We concluded, thereupon, to try a division of labor.

I related the circumstances, while his reverence took the pen and put the matter into shape.
Here follows what came of it: I.
WHEN I was a young man of five-and-twenty, I became a member of the London police force.