Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/95

 He leaned back in his chair, making large gestures with his cigar and smiling a broad indulgent smile. He flattered Barney. “A mighty bright boy, your nephew. A mighty bright boy. I ’d like to have a boy like that in my business.”

“Not much!” Barney said pertly. “I ’m goin’ in with uncle.”

Some of Babbing’s coffee got in his windpipe at that moment, and he coughed himself red in the face. Barney kept a straight mouth.

“I don’t know that you ’ll ever be as successful as your uncle,” Sullivan said. “But you ’ll succeed. You ’ve got it in you! I can see that.”

He exacted a promise from Babbing that he should go no further in the matter of the Bonanza mine until he had come to the office of Sullivan’s friends, with Sullivan, to look into the “proposition” there. “Excuse me a moment,” he said, when Babbing had paid the waiter. “I ’ll just run upstairs and get the