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“I warned you not to talk,” said Woods.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Kernan. “The stuff is in my suit case at the hotel. And now I’ll tell you why I’m talking. Because it’s safe. I’m talking to a man I know. You owe me a thousand dollars, Barney Woods, and even if you wanted to arrest me your hand wouldn’t make the move.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” said Woods. “You counted out twenty fifties without a word. I’ll pay it back some day. That thousand saved me and–well, they were piling my furniture out on the sidewalk when I got back to the house.”

“And so,” continued Kernan, “you being Barney Woods, born as true as steel, and bound to play a white man’s game, can’t lift a finger to arrest the man you’re indebted to. Oh, I have to study men as well as Yale locks and window fastenings in my business. Now, keep quiet while I ring for the waiter. I’ve had a thirst for a year or two that worries me a little. If I’m ever caught the lucky sleuth will have to divide honors with old boy Booze. But I never drink during business hours. After a job I can crook elbows with my old friend Barney with a clear conscience. What are you taking?”

The waiter came with the little decanters and the siphon and left them alone again.

“You’ve called the turn,” said Woods, as he rolled the little gold pencil about with a thoughtful fore-finger. “I’ve got to pass you up. I can’t lay a hand on you. If I’d a-paid that money back–but I didn’t, and that settles it. It’s a bad break I’m making, Johnny, but I can’t dodge it. You helped me once, and it calls for the same.”

“I knew it,” said Kernan, raising his glass, with a flushed smile of self-appreciation. “I can judge men. Here’s to Barney, for–‘he’s a jolly good fellow.'”

“I don’t believe,” went on Woods quietly, as if he were thinking aloud, “that if accounts had been square between you and me, all the money in all the banks in New York could have bought you out of my hands to-night.”

“I know it couldn’t,” said Kernan. “That’s why I knew I was safe with you.”

“Most people,” continued the detective, “look sideways at my business. They don’t class it among the fine arts and the professions. But I’ve always taken a kind of fool pride in it. And here is where I go ‘busted.’ I guess I’m a man first and a detective afterward. I’ve got to let you go, and then I’ve got to resign from the force. I guess I can drive an express wagon. Your thousand dollars is further off than ever, Johnny.”

“Oh, you’re welcome to it,” said Kernan, with a lordly air. “I’d be willing to call the debt off, but I know you wouldn’t have it. It was a lucky day for me when you borrowed it. And now, let’s drop the subject. I’m off to the West on a morning train. I know a place out there where I can negotiate the Norcross sparks. Drink up, Barney, and forget your troubles. We’ll have a jolly time while the police are knocking their heads together over the case. I’ve got one of my Sahara thirsts on to-night. But I’m in the hands–the unofficial hands–of my old friend Barney, and I won’t even dream of a cop.”

And then, as Kernan’s ready finger kept the button and the waiter working, his weak point–a tremendous vanity and arrogant egotism, began to show itself. He recounted story after story of his successful plunderings, ingenious plots and infamous transgressions until Woods, with all his familiarity with evil-doers, felt growing within him a cold abhorrence toward the utterly vicious man who had once been his benefactor.

“I’m disposed of, of course,” said Woods, at length. “But I advise you to keep under cover for a spell. The newspapers may take up this Norcross affair. There has been an epidemic of burglaries and manslaughter in town this summer.”