ke a burglar.

"Don't be a sissy. What are you scared of? Nobody's going to find out.
And if they did. I'm not going to hurt a thing."

[Illustration]

It was no use. Jerry could not argue himself into even innocent
housebreaking. As he was swinging his legs off the windowsill, he
heard music, familiar music, "The Stars and Stripes Forever." While he
had been fussing and fretting at the cellar window, the Bullfinches
must have come home and Mr. Bullfinch had put on the Sousa record.

Jerry carefully pulled the cellar window shut and ran to the front
door again. Again he pushed the bell. Again he listened. No footsteps
coming toward the door. And the music had stopped. But Jerry had heard
it. He knew he had heard it. Somebody must be there. Then why didn't
somebody come to let him in? Giving up ringing the bell, Jerry
knocked. He even kicked the door. No response to that either. "If
they're there they've decided not to let me in," Jerry reasoned.

"But they like me. They wouldn't do a thing like that. I'll go and see
if their car is in the garage and then I'll know for sure if they're
home. I might not have heard the car come in while I was on the other
side of the house."

Jerry hurried out to the garage. The garage door was open. No car. It
was obvious that the Bullfinches were still not home.

"But I could have sworn I heard somebody inside playing 'The Stars and
Stripes Forever.'" Jerry wondered if he had imagined he had heard the
band music.

"Nobody's home," said a small voice. And there was Andy just outside
the Bullfinch yard.

"Don't you suppose I know it?" barked Jerry.

Andy ran off as a car came up the street and stopped with a screech
of brakes in front of the Bullfinch house. Here were Mr. and Mrs.
Bullfinch home at last.

They were sorry to have kept Jerry waiting for them to get home. Mr.
Bullfinch showed Jerry where he kept an extra key behind the mailbox,
so if Jerry needed to get in again when they were not home, he could.

"It isn't every boy I would trust," said Mr. Bullfinch.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Bullfinch had been to an auction in Georgetown. They
had bought a pair of hand-wrought andirons shaped like little
lighthouses, but Jerry did not stop to admire them. As soon as he had
changed the five-dollar bill he was off like a shot.

Mrs. Martin had the electric mixer going but she could scold above the
noise. "Now you're home with the cheese too late for me to make cheese
sauce for the