Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/203

 After hours of exhausting “leg-work” he had to hang over his machine till the back of his neck ached, pounding the keys till his stubby fingers were sore. He had to learn to spell. It was evident that he could never learn to punctuate. He had moments when he was as unhappy as if he had been sent back to school.

He was enduring such a moment, in the operatives’ room, on this particular morning, when he was called to Babbing’s private office by a message on the office ’phone; and he went as eagerly as if it were the recess bell that had rung. His admiration of “the Chief” had mounted to hero worship. If this little, elderly, fat man had been a companionable father, an adventurous elder brother, and a rich uncle all in one, Barney could not have looked up to him with a more idolizing eye, with a more possessive trust and absorbed devotion.

He found Babbing talking to a client—a heavy-shouldered, black young man, with a