“Whatever it is that ’s bothering you. I have n’t time to put you through the third degree. Come on. Give it up.”
Barney grinned sheepishly. “Dummy knows I ’m a— He knows I ’m workin’ here.”
“And all the rest of your friends, eh?”
“Yes, ’r.”
“Huh! You ’ll meet that on the street some day, when you least expect it. Go on.”
Barney balked, silent.
“For instance,” Babbing suggested, “You have n’t told me that you did n’t want to give up young Whately when you found him at Langton’s. Have you?” He swung around in his swivel chair. “Eh?”
Barney shook his head.
Babbing rose. “Well,” he said, walking up and down in a meditative promenade, “we ’d better clear that up. If you ’re going to be a detective, you ’ll have that sort of job turning up every other day. You ’re next thing to a public hangman. And you ’ve got
