Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/90

 “Huh! Give me that Tribune." He spread the pages impatiently. “I don’t see why these New York papers don’t have some Western news in them.” And Sullivan, turning, took an appraising look at him over the shoulder.

“There is n’t a line here from Kansas City,” Babbing complained. “A New York newspaper ’s the most provincial sheet in the universe, bar none!”

“Aw, gee. Uncle,” Barney laughed. “Quit knockin’ little ol’ New York.”

“Boy!” Babbing said sternly, “you talk as if your maw had raised you on the Bowery. Where did you ever learn to speak like that? If that ’s the sort of grammar you get in your New York public schools, y’ ought to be ashamed of them.”

Barney had no reply to make, and his uncle’s eye forbade him to make any. He had “caught on to” the game that Babbing was playing, and he was enjoying it precociously; but Babbing was evidently not willing to have