find out.

Mr. Bullfinch paid for his parrot. Jerry moved up toward the desk. He
was pale behind his freckles. He could see a man bringing over the
mahogany sewing table. Just then, somebody touched Jerry's arm.

"I'll give you a dollar more than you paid for that sewing table,"
said a woman in a red hat.

Color rushed back into Jerry's face. He beamed at the woman. "Pay the
man three dollars and you can have it," he said.

On their way out to the car--and Mr. Bullfinch very kindly let Jerry
carry the cage with the parrot in it--Mr. Bullfinch explained that it
would have been quite all right for Jerry to have made a dollar on the
sewing table. "If somebody offers you more than you have paid it's all
right to take it. But what made you decide you didn't want the little
sewing table?"

"My mother has a sewing table," said Jerry.

"Good thing then you got rid of it," said Mr. Bullfinch. "Sometimes
I'm not so lucky at getting rid of something I've bought and don't
need. I get a bit carried away when I get to bidding."

Mr. Bullfinch looked calm and dignified again, but Jerry remembered
how thrilled he had looked at the auction.

"Did you enjoy going to an auction?" asked Mr. Bullfinch.

"I enjoyed most of it," said Jerry. But nobody would ever know, he
thought, slightly swinging the heavy cage, how relieved he had been to
get rid of that mahogany sewing table. He rather wished now, though,
that he had accepted that extra dollar.

9

As Good as a Watchdog

It was time for lunch when Jerry got back from the auction. He was
eating his second big waffle and his fourth sausage--the Martins
always had an especially good lunch on Saturdays since it was the one
weekday they were all home to lunch--when there was a knock at the
back door.

Mr. Martin went to the door, and the family heard him say cordially,
"Come right in."

Into the dining room came Mr. Bullfinch, parrot cage in hand. The
parrot was head-down, holding onto the perch with his feet.

"He speaks Spanish," Jerry said, although he had already informed his
family of that fact. "Make him say something in Spanish, Mr.
Bullfinch."

Mr. Bullfinch refused to sit down but he did put the parrot cage on a
chair. "Say '_Buenos dias_,'" he urged the parrot. "That is 'Good day'
or 'How do you do' in Spanish," he explained. But the parrot said
nothing in any language.

By this time Jerry and Andy were kneeling on the floor by the cage.
"Pretty Polly.