Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/71

 date. Suggest the twenty-seventh.”. . . “Wire that fellow to stop sending me telegrams or he ’ll queer the whole plant. Sign it Adam Hansen.”. . . “Yes, Chal? Did he bite?”

And because Snider was telling a connected story—a patiently connected story in spite of all distractions—Barney’s confused attention slowly concentrated on him.

Snider was becoming bald; his hair was parted down the middle with mathematical precision, as perfectly aligned as the ribs and backbone of a kippered herring. He spoke rather mincingly, smiling, but never moving his hands. He had an air of pudgy inertia—an inoffensive sedentary air, good-natured—and a look of credulity. He made a specialty of confidence men. He was telling about one who had been operating in Chicago under the name of Charles Q. Palmer.

Palmer had advertised, in the want columns, that he wished to buy a hotel property in Chicago, and the owner of the old Stilton House