And Pat did "hump" himself, ate and drank with an assumed voracity, and had a slight attack of indigestion. This didn't help matters. The night before the examination he weighed only one hundred and sixty-four pounds and four ounces--three quarters of a pound short! Wheaton was anxious but not despairing. "The examination begins at ten," he said. "Meet me here at four o'clock in the morning. We'll have six hours left." At the hour named in the morning came Wheaton, carrying a big jug. "Have you had any beer, yet, Pat?" he asked. "No sor." "Then don't take any. You must be clear-headed when you go before the Commission. Here's a gallon of water, good water it is. You must drink it all before ten o'clock." Pat looked dismayed. "Oi'll try sor." Then began the struggle. Pat washed down his breakfast at once, very salt-broiled mackerel--which Wheaton had brought,--with the usual potatoes and a big beefsteak. After that every five minutes, Wheaton forced the poor fellow to drink a glass of water. At half-past nine the gallon was done. Pat, like the tea-drinkers of Ebenezer Chapel, "swelled wisibly." But Wheaton made him drink more water. "Oi feel loike a fishpond, sor," he complained. They hurried to the nearest Turkish bath and Pat stripped and got upon the scales. He weighed one hundred and sixty-five pounds and three ounces. Pat was perspiring violently. "If you sweat, I'll murder you!" said Wheaton. They appeared before the Commission, Wheaton watching everything like a hawk, his heart in his mouth as the weighing test came. One hundred and sixty-five pounds and one ounce! There was no getting around it! "Pat," said Wheaton, later, "You're on the force now and you've had a lesson in practical politics. You ought to be a sergeant in no time." "Politics is aisy," said Pat, "but Oi'm thinkin' Oi'll be changin' me diet. Oi'm forninst beer and bread and butther forever--an'" he added, reflectively, "Oi dunno but wather, too!" "He's making a good policeman," concluded the Commissioner. So ended the relation of Pat's experience, and, a little later, the laughing group in the smoking room dissolved itself. Stafford sought his berth, largely recovered from his discontent and more like his reliant self. But he was not assured as to his dreams. Would his conscience be with him still? Could the line of conventional demarcation between him and the Far Away Lady be rigorously preserved, even in them?