Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/302

 of their amused scrutiny. When they spoke to him he answered with nods, his mouth full, his eyes scouting eagerly ahead of his appetite.

The man sat down on the edge of the veranda, smoking his pipe. The woman cut the top off a boiled egg, poured Barney’s tea for him, and put cream and sugar in it. Then she drew up the hickory rocker beside the lamp and applied herself to the sewing of his coat, while the man began to sound and examine him with mildly humorous hints and queries.

Barney did not need to invent the story which he allowed them to draw out of him. It was the story of a boy whom he had known in Hudson Street—a motherless newsboy whose drunken father used to beat him regularly, to make him give up the money he earned. He ran away and lived on the streets, supporting himself. Then the father put the police after him; and he was arrested and sentenced to the Reform School, but his sentence was suspended on condition that he gave up his “bumming”