[Sir A. Conan Doyle has stated that he considers the British police to be the best in the world.]

Sir Arthur, in those happy days
 (Now dead) when first you made me,
Upon my word I never thought
 That you would have betrayed me.
I always used to think that you
Shared my contempt for men in blue.

Where’er the bulls-eye of the truth
 They failed to land their shots on
(I speak in metaphor), I’d smile,
 And wink at dear old Watson,
And murmur nonchalantly, “Pooh!
These foolish, bungling men in blue!”

And when their weak attempts to solve
 A problem I derided,
I thought that you despised them quite
 As fervently as I did.
We scoffed together at their clue,
Those very comic men in blue.

And now you come, and in the Press
 Deliver this corrective,
And state without a touch of shame,
 “The Force is not defective.”
By gad, you know, it’s rather hard
 Upon a poor detective.
I never thought to hear that you
Had gone and praised the men in blue.

P. G. W.