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
[191]
