Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/172

 “Do you mean—” he asked, alarmed.

“Your son,” she said, “would need to be not only deaf but blind!”

They both glanced at Barney. He had been sitting in his chair by the window, playing a game with himself. He had been trying to imagine that he could not hear what they were saying; and there were moments when he almost succeeded. As a natural consequence of this division in his mind, his eyes found that both Babbing and she looked strange. Her nose was grotesquely large, and it showed purplish through her face-powder. Babbing was small and fat and funny. She simpered. Babbing watched her as if he were hypnotized. They moved, unexpectedly, like a pair of marionettes.

When they turned to him, they found him observing them with a mute and glassy stare. They went on with their palaver. Barney began to find it tedious.

Mrs. Dart was taking a charitable interest in their housing problem, and Babbing’s