ordially.

"I may need to come and get some out or put some in now and then. If
that would not be making too much trouble."

"Not at all. Not at all. Come any time you like. I've never run a bank
before. New experience for me."

Jerry could tell that Mr. Bullfinch was almost making fun of him.
Never mind, he was letting him keep Mr. Bartlett's money in the bottom
of the clock. And how grateful Jerry was to Mr. Bullfinch for not
asking any embarrassing questions about the money! Even before he had
shut the clock door on Mr. Bartlett's money and had started for home,
Jerry had decided that he liked his new neighbor, Mr. Bullfinch. He
liked him a lot.

6

"The Stars and Stripes Forever"

Jerry found it a relief not to have to worry about Cathy's snooping,
now that he was keeping Mr. Bartlett's money next door in the
grandfather clock. The only trouble was that stopping off at the
Bullfinches' on his way home often took considerable time. If Mr.
Bullfinch had been to an auction--and besides attending a weekly
auction in town he now and then went to one in nearby Maryland or
Virginia--Jerry always had to be shown what treasure Mr. Bullfinch had
acquired. One day it was a worn Oriental rug, another, an incomplete
set of fine English porcelain. The prize purchase as far as Jerry was
concerned was an old-fashioned phonograph with a horn like a big blue
morning glory flower. Jerry's father had a hi-fi which made records
sound as if the musicians were right in the same room with you, but
Jerry enjoyed the faintly mechanical sound that accompanied music
played on the old phonograph. It was like preferring canned peaches to
fresh ones. Nice for a change anyway.

Jerry liked to stay at the Bullfinches' long enough to listen to a
record or two. He was not so happy about being delayed by Mrs.
Bullfinch. She was a great talker. She told Jerry very much more than
he cared to know about her family, Mr. Bullfinch's family, and every
college town they had lived in while Mr. Bullfinch was teaching. He
had, it seemed, been a Latin teacher until the demand for Latin had
grown so small that he had thought best to switch to teaching English.

"It was teaching Freshman English that turned his hair gray," said
Mrs. Bullfinch. "Having so many students come to college without
knowing how to write a grammatical sentence was a great sorrow to
him."

Jerry's opinion was that Mr. Bullfinch's hair had turned gray from old
age. Mrs.