Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/254

 were convivial together when they could raise the price of a glass—old Cooney’s condition was not so much better than it had been at the Buntz’s. Affairs were soon complicated by the fact that Kathleen became exasperated at her husband’s idleness and accused him, before her father, of being willing to live on the rent of the rooms instead of working for himself. Cooney was a man of peace. He avoided taking sides in the quarrel. But he was drawn into it by the husband’s retort that the house was not hers anyway, but her father’s—and by the girl’s accusation that Cooney was encouraging the husband to loaf. Then she went to her sister and demanded that some just arrangement should be made by which one of them could board their father and the other make him an allowance; and Mrs. Buntz replied that she had always been willing to board him and would do so any time that he would come back to her. Cooney declared that he would starve first. Kathleen scolded him. He accused her of ingratitude.