beautiful fresh roll."

The old man smacked his lips.

While they were having tea the old woman began to laugh very much.

"What are you laughing at?" said the old man. "Did you meet the red policeman?"

"Yes, I did," said the old woman.

"And did he catch you?"

"Yes, he did," said the old woman.

"And he let you go?"

"Yes, he did," said the old woman.

"Why?"

"Because I was polite to him," said the old woman.

"Well I never," said the old man.

"But he is coming for me in the morning, providing the weather is fine," said the old woman.

The old man sat still in his chair and thought a great deal.

And by and by he said, "If you had asked the red policeman to tea like a sensible woman he might have let you off altogether."

"I shall know better next time," said the old woman.

CHAPTER V.

When the old man and his wife woke up next morning they looked out of the window and saw that the weather was quite fine. The old man began to whistle and sing. He always did this when the weather was fine because he said fine weather always made him feel in such good spirits. In a little while the old woman began to sing too. Then the old man stopped.

"What are you singing for?" he said to the old woman.

"I feel in such good spirits," the old woman replied.

"Oh, you do, do you?" said the old man. "You appear to forget that the red policeman is coming for you."

"Oh dear, oh dear," said the old woman. "What a bad memory I have to be sure. Whatever shall I do?" And she burst into tears.

"There, there," said the old man, "don't cry. We will give him sixpence when he calls, and ask him to have a piece of bread and butter with jam on it. Then perhaps he will go away."

They went downstairs and had breakfast. They had just finished when there came an awfully loud knock at the door. The old woman went very pale.

"It is the red policeman," she said.

The old man went to open the door. But the old woman pulled him back.

"You are forgetting the sixpence," she said, "and the piece of bread and butter with jam on it."

"Of course, of course," said the old man, and he felt in his pocket for sixpence while the old woman cut a nice large thick slice of bread and covered it with butter and jam.

"Perhaps after all," said the old man, "we had better not open the door, but hand the policeman the sixpence and the bread and butter with jam on it through the window."

So he opened the window a little way and held out the sixpence and the bread and butter with jam on it to the person outside.

"Thanks very much," said the person outside. And he put the sixpence in his pocket and began to eat the bread and butter with 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.