Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/258

 Annie asserted her independence feebly by taking her own time with the cakes. His mother opened her lips to reply to him—and closed them again. But what they both concealed in the backs of their minds was visible in Cooney’s admiring regard: Barney was on the way to come into his own with that family.

He refused to say anything more about his plant until he could complete his preparations for it, and those preparations required a word from Babbing.

He put in his request for an interview with the Chief early on the following morning; but he did not get an invitation to the private office until the afternoon, when Babbing, after his morning’s work and a milk-and-salad luncheon, was smoking the one cigar that he allowed himself daily. It was supposed, among his men, that he devoted this interval of nicotine to scheming out the various stratagems by which he solved his cases;