New-York tribune., 1920-08-22
\ ARNEY had spent his day
& around the General Post
Office waiting to nick up a

suspect, whom he had never
seen, and follow him--hc did not
know whither--so as to get evidence
of he did not know what. He had
had his instructions and a photo.
graph-that was all-and he had not
asked anything more. He was not
curious. He was becoming highly
professional. He did not even worry
over the fact that he had failed tc
catch his man. And having been
relieved by another member of Bah
bing's staff, he was on his way home
to his supper, now, with a free mind
But if you except that he was
tired and hungry and expecting q
warm meal and a soft bed, he was
not looking forward to his homecom-
ing with any eager anticipation
Home, of course, should be the place
where working man may talk of
himself and his day inexhaustibly
with the assurance of a sympathetic
hearing. 1t was just this credulous
ear of interest that Barney knew he
would not find.
On the first day of his work with
Babbing he had told his mother that
he had been engaged as an office boy
because he was afraid that she
might object to his being a detective
Later, when he was forced to tell her
the truth, he had wound his way in
to his confession with such uncon-
vincing circumlocution, and he had
so guiltily beclouded the point when
he came to it, that she had accepted
his story in a large silence that
evidently covered multitude of
thoughts. Then he began to come
home full of enthusiastic accounts
Of his daily exploits, and the more
calmly she received them the more
amazing he made them. Once or
twice, when he was romancing, she
interrupted him to talk to his sister
Annie. But she never expressed any
doubts of his stories to the boy him
self. She was wise woman-the
whole neighborhood knew her to be
such-and she had gained the repu-
tation by her ability to keep her
opinion of people to herself.
Barney might never have suspect
ed her if he had not become a
detective. In his social set bov
is so busy concealing the guilty Sc
crets OF his conscience from his
elders that he has no time to de-
velop his own perspicacity. He is
so diligent in hiding that he does
not sharpen his eyes for what others
have hidden. But after Babbing had
lectured him, whimsically, on the ne
cesslty of knowing when a man was
lying to him, he had begun to watch
and study the utterances he met
with. And, suddenly, he found that
he could guess what people were
thinking In the ordinary course of
growth he would have acquired the
faculty imperceptibly, by the slow
process of experience. 1t came to
him now in startling illumina-
tioql,
Ard the first thing it showed him
was his own lack of credit in his
mothers mind. He discovered, be-
meath her silence, an incredulity like
a hortomless pit. into which he had
beea pouring HIS condolences. He1
proud opinion Of him-which he had
built up for himself on her SUP
posed belief in his exploits-col-
lapsed into that chasm. He had
thought himself his mothers right
hand man. He had been jealous of
his sister Annie. His mother had
always appeared to slight the girl
IN ms favor, and to give him the
place IN her esteem to which his
masculine superiority entitled him.
Imagine the disillusionment of dis
covering that his mother had been
protecting him from Annie-that she
mad been sighting the girl in order
TO preserve an appearance of eoui-
hbrlum in her maternal affection
that she had assumed her partiality
tor him out of pity for his in
ferlorlty to his sister. Imagine the
feelings of an anti-suffragist who
learns that to Mother Nature the
female is the more important sex.
1T had taken him week to find
out where he stood and convince
himself that he was not mistaken.
He had sulked--and been ignored.
he had boasted, and his self-asser-
ton had been accepted in silence
that defeated him. He could not
take his mother to the Babbing Bu-
reau to convince her that he had not
greatly exaggerated his Importance
there. And certainly. there was no
way in which he could bring the
Babbing Bureau to her. If the hero
Of The Boy Pirate had come home
t. be spanked for playing hockey