Mary, Mary by James Stephens

Every afternoon a troop of policemen marched in solemn and majestic single file from the College Green Police Station. At regular intervals, one by one, a policeman stepped sideways from the file, adjusted his belt, touched his moustache, looked up the street and down the street for stray criminals, and condescended to the duties of his beat.

At the crossing where Nassau and Suffolk Streets intersect Grafton Street one of these superb creatures was wont to relinquish his companions, and there in the centre of the road, a monument of solidity and law, he remained until the evening hour which released him again to the companionship of his peers.