"You can bet I'll stick at the store part of it, though I ain't certain as I'd ever believed it could be done if you hadn't got into the Department. When you was runnin' to fires like as if there might be big money in it, I counted it was foolishness; but now the thing looks different."
At this point the conversation was interrupted by Sam Barney, who suddenly appeared from around a corner much as if he had popped out with the purpose of frightening them.
Seth would have passed the would-be detective without a word, for after what had been done he felt no desire to so much as speak with him; but now was the hour of Master Barney's triumph, and he did not intend to lose any opportunity of sounding his own praises.
"Well," he cried, stepping directly in front of the boys, "what do you think now 'bout my bein' a detective?"
"If you are one, nobody knows it but yourself," Dan replied angrily.
"Didn't I get Jip Collins arrested?"
"Yes, an' anybody might er done the same thing, without startin' in by goin' to Philadelphy. It seems you wasn't much of a detective when you figgered that he was over there."
"If you fellers hadn't been so smart with your railroad ticket I'd never gone, 'cause it didn't take me very long to see how I'd made a mistake in figgerin', after I put my mind right down to it."
"I notice you hung 'round here two days waitin' for us to raise the money. Couldn't you find the mistake before then?"
"I didn't try; but when I started in without bein' mixed up with a crowd of duffers like you, I soon put the thing through."