Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/246

 them to the basement, where an odor of cooking flattered his nostrils. He heard old Con Cooney’s voice, and understood that their neighbor had dropped in again for supper. He liked Cooney—because Cooney liked him—and the presence of another man in the house seemed somehow to mitigate the feminine conspiracy to belittle him.

Mrs. Cook, having rented all her upper floors, housed her family in three rooms in the basement; and they had their meals in the big old-fashioned kitchen, on an oilcloth-covered table, beside a cookstove that stood in an arched niche of brick in the chimney wall. Barney smelled the potato cakes in the oven as he hung up his hat in the lower hall. He did not get the subtler fragrance of clam chowder till he came into the room. When old Cooney said heartily “How are ye, boy?” he answered “Fine an’ dandy,” with a smile. It was the smile of an expectant stomach.

His mother rose to get his soup plate from the warming shelf, but she merely looked her