"One, two, three, bend! One, two, three, bend!" So barked the physical
instructor, a bulgy man with muscles popping out all over him as if his
skin had been stuffed with hard-boiled eggs.
Little Peter Mullaney oned, twoed, threed and bent with such earnest and
whole-hearted violence that his blue eyes seemed likely to be jostled
from their sockets and the freckles to be jarred loose from his thin,
wiry arms. Though breathless, and not a little sinew-sore from the stiff
setting-up exercises, his small, sharp-jawed face wore a beatified look,
the look that bespeaks the rare, ecstatic thrill that comes to mortals
so seldom in this life of taxes, prohibitions and denied ambitions. Such
a look might a hero-worshiping boy wear if seen by his gang in the
company of Jack Dempsey, or a writer if caught in the act of taking tea
with Shaw. Peter Mullaney was standing at the very door of his life's
ambition; he was about to be taken "on the cops."
To be taken "on the cops"--the phrase is departmental argot and is in
common use by those who enjoy that distinction--this had been the ideal
of Peter Mullaney since the days when he, an undersized infant, had
tottered around his Christopher Street back-yard, an improvised
broom-stick billy in his hand, solemnly arresting and incarcerating his
small companions. To wear that spruce, brass-button studded blue
uniform, and that glittering silver shield, to twirl a well-trained
night-stick on its cord, to eye the layman with the cold, impassive eye
of authority, to whisper mysterious messages into red iron signal boxes
on street-corners, to succor the held-up citizen and pursue the crook to
his underworld lair, to be addressed as "Officer"--he had lived for this
dream.
And here he was, the last man on a row of thirty panting, perspiring
probationary patrolmen, ranged, according to height, across the
gymnasium of the police training school. From big Dan Mack, six feet
four in his socks, they graded down as gently as a ramp to little Peter
on the end of the line a scant, a bare five feet five and seven-eighths
inches tall including the defiant bristle of his red pompadour.
Peter was happy, and with reason. It was by no generous margin that
Peter had gained admission to the school that was to prepare him for his
career. By the sheerest luck he had escaped being cast into the exterior
darkness; by the slimmest degree he had wiggled into the school, and
whether he could attain the goal on which he had kept his eye for twenty
years--or ever since he was four--was still decidedly in doubt. The law
said in plain, inexorable black and white that the minimum height a
policeman can be is five feet and six inches. Peter Mullaney lacked that
stature by the distance between a bumble-bee's eyes; and this, despite
the fact that for years he had sought most strenuously, by exercise,
diet and even torture to stretch out his body to the required five feet
six. When he was eighteen and it seemed certain that an unsympathetic
fate had meant him to be a short man, his father found him one day in
the attic, lashed to a beam, with a box full of window-weights tied to
his feet, and his face gray with pain.
"Shure, me bye," remarked old man Mullaney as he cut Peter down, "are ye
after thinkin' that the Mullaneys is made of Injy rubber? Don't it say
in the Bible, 'What man by takin' thought can add a Cupid to his
statue?'"
Peter, in hot and anguished rebellion against this all too evident law
of nature had sought relief by going straight out of the house and
licking the first boy he met who was twice as big as he was, in a fight
that is still remembered in the Second Ward. But stretching and wishing
and even eating unpleasant and expensive tablets, alleged by their
makers to be made from giraffes' glands, did not bring Peter up to a
full and unquestionable five feet six.
When Peter came up for a preliminary examination which was to determine
whether he possessed the material from which policemen are made,
Commissioner Kondorman, as coldly scientific as his steel scales and
measures, surveyed the stricken Peter, as he stood there on the scales,
his freckles in high relief on his skin, for he was pale all over at the
thought that he might be rejected.
"Candidate Mullaney," said the Commissioner, "you're too short."
Peter felt marble lumps swelling in his throat.
"If you'd only give me a chance, Commissioner," he was able to gulp out,
"I'd----"
Commissioner Kondorman, who had been studying the records spread on his
desk, cut the supplicant short with:
"Your marks in the other tests are pretty good, though you seem a little
weak in general education. But your strength test is unusually high for
a small man. However, regulations are regulations and I believe in
sticking to them. Next candidate!"
Peter did not go.
"Commissioner," he began urgently, "all I ask is a chance----"
His eyes were tense and pleading.
The Chief Inspector, grizzled Matthew McCabe, plucked at the
Commissioner's coat-sleeve.
"Well, Chief?" inquired Commissioner Kondorman, a little impatiently.
"He's a good lad," put in the Chief Inspector, "and well spoke of in the
Second Ward."
"He's under height," said the Commissioner, briefly.
"But he knows how to handle his fists," argued the old Chief Inspector.
"Does he?" said the Commissioner, skeptically. "He looks rather small."
He examined Peter through his eye-glasses; beneath that chill and
critical gaze Peter felt that he had shrunk to the size of a bantam
rooster; the lumps in his throat were almost choking him; in an agony of
desperation, he cried,
"Bring in the biggest man you got. I'll fight him."
The Commissioner's face was set in hard, and one would have thought,
immovable lines, yet he achieved the feat of turning up, ever so
slightly, the corners of his lips in an expression which might pass as
the germ of a smile, as he gazed at the small, nude, freckled figure
before him with its vivid shaving-brush hair, its intense eyes and its
clenched fists posed in approved prize-ring form. Again the official
bent over the records and studied them.
"Character recommendations seem pretty good," he mused. "Never has used
tobacco or liquor----"
"'Fraid it might stunt me," muttered Peter, "so I couldn't get on the
cops."
The commissioner stared at him with one degree more of interest.
"Give the lad a chance," urged the Chief Inspector. "He only lacks a
fraction of an inch. He may grow."
"Now, Chief," said the Commissioner turning to the official by his side,
"you know I'm a stickler for the rules. What's the good of saying
officers must be five feet six and then taking men who are shorter?"
"You know how badly we need men," shrugged the Chief Inspector, "and
Mullaney here strikes me as having the making of a good cop. It will do
no harm to try him out."
The Commissioner considered for a moment. Then he wheeled round and faced
Peter Mullaney.
"You've asked for a chance," he shot out. "You'll get it. You can attend
police training school for three months. I'll waive the fact that you're
below the required height, for the time being. But if in your final
examinations you don't get excellent marks in every branch, by the Lord
Harry, you get no shield from me. Do you understand? One slip, and
good-by to you. Next candidate!"
They had to guide Peter Mullaney back to his clothes; he was in a dazed
blur of happiness.
Next day, with the strut of a conqueror and with pride shining from
every freckle, little Peter Mullaney entered the police training school.
To fit himself physically for the task of being a limb of the law, he
oned, twoed, threed and bent by the hour, twisted the toes of two
hundred pound fellow students in frantic jiu jitsu, and lugged other
ponderous probationers about on his shoulders in the practice of first
aid to the injured. This physical side of his schooling Peter enjoyed,
and, despite his lack of inches, did extremely well, for he was quick,
tough and determined. But it was the book-work that made him pucker his
brow and press his head with his hands as if to keep it from bursting
with the facts he had to jam into it.
It was the boast of Commissioner Kondorman that he was making his police
force the most intelligent in the world. Give him time, he was fond of
saying, and there would not be a man on it who could not be called
well-informed. He intended to see to it that from chief inspector down
to the greenest patrolman they could answer, off-hand, not only
questions about routine police matters, but about the whole range of the
encyclopedia.
"I want well-informed men, intelligent men," he said. "Men who can tell
you the capital of Patagonia, where copra comes from, and who discovered
the cotton-gin. I want men who have used their brains, have read and
thought a bit. The only way I can find that out is by asking questions,
isn't it?"
The anti-administration press, with intent to slight, called the
policemen "Kondorman's Encyclopedias bound in blue," but he was not in
the least perturbed; he made his next examination a bit stiffer.
Peter Mullaney, handicapped by the fact that his span of elementary
schooling had been abbreviated by the necessity of earning his own
living, struggled valiantly with weighty tomes packed with statutes,
ordinances, and regulations--what a police officer can and cannot do
about mayhem, snow on the sidewalks, arson, dead horses in the street,
kidnaping, extricating intoxicated gentlemen from man-holes, smoking
automobiles, stray goats, fires, earthquakes, lost children, blizzards,
disorderly conduct and riots. He prepared himself, by no small exertion,
to tell an inquiring public where Bedford street is, if traffic can go
both ways on Commerce street, what car to take to get from Hudson street
to Chatham Square, how to get to the nearest branch library, quick
lunch, public bath, zoo, dispensary and garage, how to get to the Old
Slip Station, Flower Hospital, the St. Regis, Coney Island, Duluth and
Grant's Tomb. He stuffed himself with these pertinent facts; he wanted
to be a good cop. He could not see exactly how it would help him to know
in addition to an appalling amount of local geography and history, the
name of the present ruler of Bulgaria, what a zebu is, and who wrote
"Home, Sweet Home." But since questions of this sort were quite sure to
bob up on the examination he toiled through many volumes with a zeal
that made his head ache.
When he had been working diligently in the training school for three
months lacking a day, the great moment came when he was given a chance
to put theory into practice, by being sent forth, in a uniform slightly
too large for him, to patrol a beat in the company of a veteran officer,
so that he might observe, at first hand, how an expert handled the many
and varied duties of the police job. Except that he had no shield, no
night stick, and no revolver, Peter looked exactly like any of the other
guardians of law. He trudged by the side of the big Officer Gaffney,
trying to look stern, and finding it hard to keep his joy from breaking
out in a smile. If Judy McNulty could only see him now! They were to be
married as soon as he got his shield.
But joy is never without its alloy. Even as Peter strode importantly
through the streets of the upper West Side, housing delicious thrills in
every corpuscle from the top of his blue cap to the thick soles and
rubber heels of his shiningly new police shoes, a worry kept plucking at
his mind. On the morrow he was to take his final examination in general
education, and that was no small obstacle between him and his shield. He
had labored to be ready, but he was afraid.
That worry grew as he paced along, trying to remember whether the Amazon
is longer than the Ganges and who Gambetta was. He did not even pay
close attention to his mentor, although on most occasions those five
blue service stripes on Officer Gaffney's sleeve, representing a quarter
of a century on the force, would have caused Peter to listen with rapt
interest to Officer Gaffney's genial flow of reminiscence and advice.
Dimly he heard the old policeman rumbling:
"When I was took on the cops, Pether, all they expected of a cop was two
fists and a cool head. But sthyles in cops changes like sthyles in hats,
I guess. I've seen a dozen commissioners come and go, and they all had
their own ideas. The prisint comish is the queerest duck of the lot, wid
his "Who was Pernambuco and what the divil ailed him, and who invinted
the gin rickey and who discovered the Gowanus Canal." Not that I'm agin
a cop bein' a learned man. Divil a bit. Learnin' won't hurt him none if
he has two fists and a clear head."
He paused to take nourishment from some tabloid tobacco in his
hip-pocket, and rumbled on,
"Whin I was took on the cops, as I say, they was no graduatin' exercises
like a young ladies' siminary. The comish--it was auld Malachi
Bannon--looked ye square in the eye and said, 'Young fella, ye're about
to go forth and riprisint the majesty of the law. Whin on juty be clane
and sober and raisonably honest. Keep a civil tongue in your head for
ivrybody, even Republicans. Get to know your precinct like a book. Don't
borrow trouble. But above all, rimimber this: a cop can do a lot of
queer things and square himself wid me afterward, but there's one sin no
cop can square--the sin of runnin' away whin needed. Go to your post.'"
Little Peter nodded his head.
They paced along in silence for a time. Then Peter asked,
"Jawn----"
"What, Pether?"
"Jawn, where is the Tropic of Capricorn?"
Officer Gaffney wrinkled his grey eyebrows quizzically.
"The Tropic of Whichicorn?" he inquired.
"The Tropic of Capricorn," repeated Peter.
"Pether," said Officer Gaffney, dubiously, scratching his head with the
tip of his night-stick, "I disrimimber but I think--I think, mind ye,
it's in the Bronx."
They continued their leisurely progress.
"'Tis a quiet beat, this," observed Officer Gaffney. "Quiet but
responsible. Rich folks lives in these houses, Pether, and that draws
crooks, sometimes. But mostly it's as quiet as a Sunday in Dooleyville."
He laughed deep in his chest.
"It makes me think," he said, "of Tommie Toohy, him that's a lieutinant
now over in Canarsie. 'Tis a lesson ye'd do well to mind, Pether."
Peter signified that he was all ears.
"He had the cop bug worse than you, even, Pether," said the veteran.
Peter flushed beneath his freckles.
"Yis, he had it bad, this Tommie Toohy," pursued Officer Gaffney. "He
was crazy to be a cop as soon as he could walk. I never seen a happier
man in me life than Toohy the day he swaggers out of the station-house
to go on post up in the twenty-ninth precinct. In thim days there was
nawthin' up there but rows of little cottages wid stoops on thim;
nawthin but dacint, respictable folks lived there and they always give
that beat to a recruity because it was so quiet. Well, Toohy goes on
juty at six o'clock in the evenin', puffed up wid importance and
polishing his shield every minute or two. 'Tis a short beat--up one side
of Garden Avenue and down on the other side. Toohy paces up and down,
swingin' his night-stick and lookin' hard and suspicious at every man,
woman or child that passes him. He was just bustin' to show his
authority. But nawthin' happened. Toohy paced up and back, up and back,
up and back. It gets to be eight o'clock. Nawthin happens. Toohy can
stand it no longer. He spies an auld man sittin' on his stoop,
peacefully smokin' his evenin' pipe. Toohy goes up to the old fellow and
glares at him.
"'What are you doin' there?' says Toohy.
"'Nawthin,' says the auld man.
"'Well,' says Toohy, wid a stern scowl, shakin' his night-stick at the
scared auld gazabo, 'You go in the house.'"
Peter chuckled.
"But Toohy lived to make a good cop for all that," finished the veteran.
"Wid all his recruity monkey-shines, he never ran away whin needed."
"I wonder could he bound Bolivia," said Peter Mullaney.
"I'll bet he could," said Officer Gaffney, "if it was in his precinct."
Late next afternoon, Peter sat gnawing his knuckles in a corner of the
police schoolroom. All morning he had battled with the examination in
general education. It had not been as hard as he had feared, but he was
worried nevertheless. So much was at stake.
He was quivering all over when he was summoned to the office of the
Commissioner, and his quivering grew as he saw the rigid face of
Commissioner Kondorman, and read no ray of hope there. Papers were
strewn over the official desk. Kondorman looked up, frowned.
"Mullaney," he said, bluntly, "you've failed."
"F-failed?" quavered Peter.
"Yes. In general education. I told you if you made excellent marks we'd
overlook your deficiency in height. Your paper"--he tapped it with his
finger--"isn't bad. But it isn't good. You fell down hard on question
seventeen."
"Question seventeen?"
"Yes. The question is, 'Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?' And your
answer is"--the Commissioner paused before he pronounced the damning
words--"'The Tropic of Capricon is in the Bronx.'"
Peter gulped, blinked, opened and shut his fists, twisted his cap in his
hands, a picture of abject misery. The Commissioner's voice was crisp
and final.
"That's all, Mullaney. Sorry. Turn in your uniform at once. Well?"
Peter had started away, had stopped and was facing the commissioner.
"Commissioner," he begged----
"That will do," snapped the Commissioner. "I gave you your chance; you
understood the conditions."
"It--it isn't that," fumbled out Peter Mullaney, "but--but wouldn't you
please let me go out on post once more with Officer Gaffney?"
"I don't see what good that would do," said Commissioner Kondorman,
gruffly.
Tears were in Peter's eyes.
"You see--you see----" he got out with an effort, "it
would be my last chance to wear the uniform--and
I--wanted--somebody--to--see--me--in--it--just--once."
The Commissioner stroked his chin reflectively.
"Were you scheduled to go out on post for instruction," he asked, "if
you passed your examination?"
"Yes, sir. From eight to eleven."
The Commissioner thought a moment.
"Well," he said, "I'll let you go. It won't alter the case any, of
course. You're through, here. Turn in your uniform by eleven thirty,
sure."
Peter mumbled his thanks, and went out of the office with shoulders that
drooped as if he were carrying a safe on them.
* * * * *
It was with heavy steps and a heavier heart that little Peter Mullaney,
by the side of his mentor, passed the corner where Judy McNulty stood
proudly waiting for him. He saluted her gravely with two fingers to his
visor--police officers never bow--and kept his eyes straight ahead. He
did not have the heart to stop, to speak to her, to tell her what had
happened to him. He hadn't even told Officer Gaffney. He stalked along
in bitter silence; his eyes were fixed on his shoes, the stout, shiny
police shoes he had bought to wear at his graduation, the shoes he was
to have worn when he stepped up to the Commissioner and received his
shield, with head erect and a high heart. His empty hands hung heavily
at his sides; there was no baton of authority in them; there never would
be. Beneath the place his silver shield would never cover now was a cold
numbness.
* * * * *
"Damn the Tropic of Capricorn," came from between clenched teeth, "Damn
the Tropic of Capricorn."
Gaffney's quick ears heard him.
"Still thinkin' about the Tropic of Capricorn?" he asked, not knowing
that the words made Peter wince. "Well, me bye, 'twill do no harm to
know where it is. I'm not denyin' that it's a gran' thing for a cop to
be a scholar. But just the same 'tis me firm belief that a man may be
able to tell the difference bechune a begonia and a petunia, he may be
able to tell where the--now--Tropic of Unicorn is, he may know who wrote
"In the Sweet Bye and Bye," and who invented the sprinklin' cart, he may
be able to tell the population of Peking and Pann Yann, but he ain't a
cop at all if he iver runs away whin needed. Ye can stake your shield on
that, me bye."
His shield? Peter dug his nails into the palm of his hand. Blind hate
against the Commissioner, against the whole department, flared up in
him. He'd strip the uniform off on the spot, he'd hurl it into the
gutter, he'd----
Officer Gaffney had stopped short. A woman was coming through the night,
running. As she panted up to them in the quiet, deserted street, the two
men saw that she was a middle-aged woman in a wrapper, and that she was
white with fright.
"Burglars," she gasped.
"Where?" rapped out Officer Gaffney.
"Number 97."
"Be calm, ma'am. What makes ye think they're burglars?"
"I heard them.... Moving around.... In the drawing room.... Upstairs."
"Who are you?" asked the old policeman, imperturbably.
"Mrs. Finn--caretaker. The family is away."
"Pether," said Officer Gaffney, "you stay here and mind the beat like a
good bucko, while I stroll down to ninety-sivin wid Mrs. Finn."
"Let me come too, Jawn," cried Peter.
Gaffney laid his big hand on little Peter's chest.
"'Tis probably a cat movin' around," he said softly so that Mrs. Finn
could not hear. "Lonely wimmin is always hearin' things. Besides me
ambitious but diminootive frind, if they was yeggs what good could ye do
wid no stick and no gun? You stay here on the corner like I'm tellin'
you and I'll be back in ten minutes by the clock."
* * * * *
Peter Mullaney waited on the corner. He saw the bulky figure of Officer
Gaffney proceed at a dignified but rapid waddle down the block, followed
by the smaller, more agitated figure of the woman. He saw Officer
Gaffney go into the basement entrance, and he saw Mrs. Finn hesitate,
then timidly follow. He waited. A long minute passed. Another. Another.
Then the scream of a woman hit his ears. He saw Mrs. Finn dart from the
house, wringing her hands, screaming. He sprinted down to her.
"They've kilt him," screamed the woman. "Oh, they've kilt the officer."
"Who? Tell me. Quick!"
"The yeggs," she wailed. "There's two of them. The officer went
upstairs. They shot him. He rolled down. Don't go in. They'll shoot you.
Send for help."
Peter stood still. He was not thinking of the yeggs, or of Gaffney. He
was hearing Kondorman ask, "Where is the Tropic of Capricorn?" He was
hearing Kondorman say, "You've failed." Something had him tight.
Something was asking him, "Why go in that house? Why risk your life?
You're not a cop. You'll never be a cop. They threw you out. They made a
fool of you for a trifle."
Peter started back from the open door; he looked down; the street light
fell on the brass buttons of his uniform; the words of the old policeman
darted across his brain: "A cop never runs away when needed."
He caught his breath and plunged into the house. At the foot of the
stairs leading up to the second floor he saw by the street light that
came through the opened door, the sprawling form of a big man; the light
glanced from the silver badge on his broad chest. Peter bent over
hastily.
"Is it you, Pether?" breathed Gaffney, with difficulty. "They got me.
Got me good. Wan of thim knocked me gun from me hand and the other
plugged me. Through the chist. I'm done for, Pether. I can't breathe.
Stop, Pether, stop!"
The veteran tried to struggle to his feet, but sank back, holding
fiercely to Peter's leg.
"Let me go, Jawn. Let me go," whispered Peter hoarsely.
"They'll murder you, Pether. It's two men to wan,--and they're armed."
"Let me go in, I tell you, Jawn. Let me go. A good cop never runs--you
said it yourself--let me go----"
Slowly the grip on Peter's leg relaxed; the dimming eyes of the wounded
man had suddenly grown very bright.
"Ye're right, me little bucko," he said faintly. "Ye'll be a credit to
the foorce, Pether." And then the light died out of his eyes and the
hand that had grasped Peter fell limp to the floor.
Peter was up the stairs that led to the second floor in three swift,
wary jumps. He heard a skurry of footsteps in the back of the house.
Dashing a potted fern from its slender wooden stand, he grasped the end
of the stand, and swinging it like a baseball bat, he pushed through
velvet curtains into a large room. There was enough light there from the
moon for him to see two black figures prying desperately at a door. They
wheeled as he entered. Bending low he hurled himself at them as he had
done when playing football on a back lot. There was a flash so near that
it burned his face; he felt a sharp fork of pain cross his head as if
his scalp had been slashed by a red-hot knife. With all the force in his
taut body he swung the stand at the nearest man; it caught the man
across the face and he went down with a broken, guttural cry. A second
and a third shot from the revolver of the other man roared in Peter's
ears. Still crouching, Peter dived through the darkness at the knees of
the man with the gun; together they went to the floor in a cursing,
grunting tangle.
The burglar struggled to jab down the butt of his revolver on the head
of the small man who had fastened himself to him with the death grip of
a mongoose on a cobra. They thrashed about the room. Peter had gotten a
hold on the man's pistol wrist and he held to it while the man with his
free hand rained blow after blow on the defenseless face and bleeding
head of the little man. As they fought in the darkness, the burglar with
a sudden violent wrench tore loose the clinging Peter, and hurled him
against a table, which crashed to the floor with the impact of Peter's
one hundred and thirty pounds of muscle and bone.
As Peter hurtled back, his arms shot out mechanically to break his fall;
one groping hand closed on a heavy iron candle-stick that had stood on
the table. He was up in a flash, the candle-stick in his hand. His eyes
were blinded by the blood from his wound; he dashed the blood away with
his coat-sleeve. With a short, sharp motion he hurled the candle-stick
at his opponent's head, outlined against a window, not six feet away. At
the moment the missile flew from Peter's hand, the yegg steadied himself
and fired. Then he reeled to the floor as the candle-stick's heavy base
struck him between the eyes.
For the ghost of a second, Peter Mullaney stood swaying; then his hands
clawed at the place on his chest where his shield might have been as if
his heart had caught fire and he wished to tear it out of himself; then,
quite gently, he crumpled to the floor, and there was the quiet of night
in the room.
* * * * *
As little Peter Mullaney lay in the hospital trying to see through his
bandages the flowers Judy McNulty had brought him, he heard the voice of
the doctor saying:
"Here he is. Nasty chest wound. We almost lost him. He didn't seem to
care much whether he pulled through or not. Was delirious for hours.
Kept muttering something about the Tropic of Capricorn. But I think
he'll come through all right now. You just can't kill one of these tough
little micks."
Peering through his bandages, Peter Mullaney saw the square shoulders
and stern face of Commissioner Kondorman.
"Good morning, Mullaney," the Commissioner said, in his formal official
voice. "I'm glad to hear that you're going to get better."
"Thank you, Commissioner," murmured Peter, watching him with wondering
eyes.
Commissioner Kondorman felt round in an inside pocket and brought out a
small box from which he carefully took something that glittered in the
morning sunlight. Bending over the bed, he pinned it on the night-shirt
of Peter Mullaney. Peter felt it; stopped breathing; felt it again;
slowly pulled it out so that he could look at it.
"It was Officer John Gaffney's," said the Commissioner, and his voice
was trying hard to be official and formal, but it was getting husky. "He
was a brave officer. I wanted another brave officer to have his shield."
"But, Commissioner," cried Peter, winking very hard with both eyes, for
they were blurring, "haven't you made a mistake? You must have got the
wrong man. Don't you remember? I'm the one that said the Tropic of
Capricorn is in the Bronx!"
"Officer Mullaney," said Commissioner Kondorman in an odd voice, "if a
cop like you says the Tropic of Capricorn is in the Bronx, then, by the
lord Harry, that's where the Tropic of Capricorn is."