Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/29

 was not apprehensive. He was not even nervous. There was nothing forbidding in the mild reserve of the detective’s face. He looked like a man of a kindly personality. He seemed easy-going and meditative. And Barney, of course, was not the first to get that impression of him. It was one of the things that explained Babbing’s success.

He led the way down the padded carpet of the corridor to his room, and unlocked the door, and threw it open for Barney to enter one of the usual hotel bedrooms of the Antwerp’s class, with the usual curly-maple furniture and elaborate curtains and thick carpeting. Barney put the satchel on the table, and waited in the center of stereotyped luxury. “When did Mr. Archibald take you on?” Babbing asked, aside, as he hung up his hat and overcoat.

“He has n’t taken me on—yet,” Barney admitted.

Babbing put on a pair of unexpected spectacles and got out a ring of keys to unlock his