et and opens it out, and I think maybe he has a
penknife, too, and next thing I know the padlock is open.

"Gee, how'd you do that?"

"Sh-h-h. A guy showed me how. You better get your cat and scram."

Golly, I wonder, maybe the guy is a burglar, and that gives me another
creepy feeling. But would a burglar be taking time out to get a kid's cat
free?

"Well, thanks for the cat. See you around," I say.

"Sh-h-h. I don't live around here. Hurry up, before we both get caught."

Maybe he's a real burglar with a gun, even, I think, and by the time I
dodge past the elevators and get out in the cold April wind, the sweat
down my back is freezing. I give Cat a long lecture on staying out of
basements. After all, I can't count on having a burglar handy to get him
out every time.

Back home we put some nice jailhouse blues on the record player, and we
both stretch out on the bed to think. The guy didn't really _look_ like a
burglar. And he didn't talk "dese and dose." Maybe real burglars don't all
talk that way--only the ones on TV. Still, he sure picked that lock fast,
and he was sure down in that cellar for some reason of his own.

Maybe I ought to let someone know. I figure I'll test Pop out, just casual
like. "Some queer-looking types hanging around this neighborhood," I say
at dinner. "I saw a tough-looking guy hanging around Number Forty-six this
afternoon. Might have been a burglar, even."

I figure Pop'll at least ask me what he was doing, and maybe I'll tell him
the whole thing--about Cat and the cage. But Pop says, "In case you didn't
know it, burglars do not all look like Humphrey Bogart, and they don't
wear signs."

"Thanks for the news," I say and go on eating my dinner. Even if Pop does
make me sore, I'm not going to pass up steak and onions, which we don't
have very often.

However, the next day I'm walking along Twenty-first Street and I see the
super of Forty-six standing by the back entrance, so I figure I'll try
again. I say to him, "Us kids were playing ball here yesterday, and we saw
a strange-looking guy sneak into your cellar. It wasn't a delivery boy."

"Yeah? You sure it wasn't you or one of your juvenile pals trying to swipe
a bike? How come you have to play ball right here?"

"I don't swipe bikes. I got one of my own. New. A Raleigh. Better than any
junk you got in there."

"What d'you know about what I got in there, wise guy?"

"Aw, forget it." I realize he's just getting suspicious of