I stopped at Barney's stand for my buttonhole rose,--and at once I knew, by the gleam in his eye, that he had something special to tell me.
"So it's yourself is the celebrity this morning, Mr. Hilton," he said eagerly.
"I? Oh, no. I wasn't killed and didn't kill anybody."
"But ye know a power about the happenin's, I'll be bound."
"Yes, I know as much as anybody does," I said, supposing that he wanted to ask me about some particular.
"It's the hard and revengeful heart he must have, and him so young, to shoot a man that the law has set right," said Barney, craftily.
"What?" I said sharply. "What do you mean, Barney?--if you mean anything!"
"Sure, an' I can't be tellin' ye anything that ye didn't know!"
"Have they found the murderer?" I asked, yet with a nervous dread of his answer.
"Divil a bit. He found himself, and couldn't keep the secret," Barney said, entirely happy in being able to give me this surprising information. "The officer on the beat this morning tould me that the whole departmint fell over itself when the young lad walked into the station with his head up like a play-actin' gossoon, and says, 'I killed him for that he killed me fayther.' The exthra will be out by now."