that ultimate quality of fiber which does, and of stern necessity must, characterize the wearers of the Lens. For that reason not even the man himself knows why he was dismissed, and no one save those who wear the Lens knows why they were selected—and a member of the patrol does not talk.

"It is necessary to consider the history and background of the patrol in order to bring out clearly the necessity for such care in the selection of its personnel. You are all familiar with it, but probably very few of you have thought of it in that connection. The patrol is, of course, an outgrowth of the old planetary police systems; and, until its development, law enforcement always lagged behind law violation. Thus, in the old days following the invention of the automobile, State troopers could not cross State lines. Then, when the national police finally took charge, they could not follow the rocket-equipped criminals across national boundaries.

"Still later, when interplanetary flight became a commonplace, the planetary police were at the same old disadvantage. They had no authority off their own worlds, while the public enemies flitted unhampered from planet to planet. And finally, with the invention of the inertialess drive and the consequent traffic between the worlds of hundreds of thousands of solar systems, crime became so rampant, so utterly uncontrollable, that it threatened the very foundations of civilization. A man could perpetrate any crime imaginable without fear of consequences, for in an hour he could be thousands of light years away from the scene and safely beyond the reach of the law.

"And helping powerfully toward utter chaos were the new vices, which were spreading from world to world; among others the taking of new and horrible drugs. Thionite, for instance; occurring only upon Trenco; a drug as much deadlier than heroin as that compound is than coffee, and which even now commands such a fabulous price that a man can carry a fortune in one hollow boot heel.

"Thus our patrol came into being. At first it was a pitiful enough organization. It was handicapped from without by politics and politicians, and at the same time it was honeycombed from within by the usual small but utterly poisonous percentage of the unfit—grafters, corruptionists, bribe takers, and out-and-out criminals. It was also hampered by the fact that there was then no emblem or credential which could not be counterfeited. No one could tell with certainty that the man in uniform was a patrolman and not a criminal in disguise.

"Slowly 

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