"Misther Barres, sorr! As God sees me----"
"I can see you, too. I want you to behave, Soane. This is friendly advice. That one-eyed pedlar who just beat it has been bothering me. Other pedlars come ringing at the studio and interrupt and annoy me. You know the rules. If the other tenants care to stand for it, all right. But I'm through. Is that plain?"
"It is, sorr," said the unabashed delinquent. The faintest glimmer of a grin came into his battered eyes. "Sorra a wan o' thim ever lays a hand to No. 9 bell or I'll have his life!"
"One thing more," continued Barres, smiling in spite of himself at the Irish of it all. "I am paying Dulcie a salary----"
"Stop! I tell you that she's in my employment on a salary. Don't ever touch a penny of it again."
"No, they _don't_ belong to the father. Legally, perhaps, but the law doesn't suit me. So if you take the money that she earns, and blow it in at Grogan's, I'll have to discharge her because I won't stand for what you are doing."
The Irishman scratched his curly head in frank perplexity.
"Dulcie needs clothes suitable to her age," continued Barres. "She needs other things. I'm going to take charge of her savings so don't you attempt to tamper with them. You wouldn't do such a thing, anyway, Soane, if this miserable drink habit hadn't got a hold on you. If you don't quit, it will down you. You'll lose your place here. You know that. Try to brace up. This is a rotten deal you're giving yourself and your daughter."
Soane wept easily. He wept now. Tearful volubility followed--picturesque, lit up with Hibernian flashes, then rambling, and a hint of slyness in it which kept one weeping eye on duty watching Barres all the while.
"All right; behave yourself," concluded Barres. "And, Soane, I shall have three or four people to dinner and a little dancing afterward. I want Dulcie to enjoy her graduating dance."
"Sure, Misther Barres, you're that kind to the child----"
"_Somebody_ ought to be. Do you know that there was nobody she knew to see her graduate to-day, excepting myself?"
"Oh, the poor darling! Sure, I was that busy----"
"Busy sleeping off a souse," said Barres drily. "And by the way, who is that stolid, German-looking girl who alternates with you here at the desk?"