Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/272

 ’T was all paid up, years since.” Mrs. Buntz said: “There now! It ’s a good thing you have us to look after you, er you ’d be in a nice way. I was just thinkin’ to-day that when Kathleen sells her house—”

“I ’m not goin’ to sell the house,” Kathleen cut in. “As long as paw lives, he ’ll have his own roof over him—”

“I don’t see that this roof is any more his than ours is,” Mrs. Buntz maintained. “He ’s got as good a right—”

And Cooney, foreseeing another quarrel, sneaked away to keep his appointment with Barney, two hours ahead of time. He had promised to tell no one of Barney’s plot—not even Barney’s mother. But he accompanied Barney to his home, to see that “wunder av the wurrld” safely housed for the night, and he did not try to disguise the fact from Mrs. Cook that her boy was “a janius.”

“Faith, m’am,” he whispered at the door, “ ’tis beyond belief, but he ’s got thim two gurls quar’lin’ now about which one ’s to have