fe-cracker. Mr. Watkins, what good do you
think it'd do you in here?"

"We'll get back."

"You're a safe-cracker?" asked Mrs. Full, her pale face lengthening with
horror, disgust, and fear. "A criminal?"

"In a manner of speaking, ma'am," said Tom Watkins, "I am."

"I'll be hanged," said Summersby. "And you accused me of stealing your
loot. I ought to butter you all over the wall."

"You try it, you overgrown galoot. I didn't do a hitch in the
Philippines for nothing." Watkins smoothed back his hair, which was
dangling into his eyes. "Sure, I'm a safe man. Don't worry, Mrs. Full,
that doesn't mean I'm a thug." She looked scared.

"That's right," said Adam, still chuckling. "This boy's the aristocracy
of crime. You don't have to worry about your purse. He only plays around
with big stuff."

Tom flipped him a grin. "I'll bet you even know why I was on the
coaster."

"Sure. You were hiding out."

"That's it. If I kept out of sight till dark I was okay. They were out
for me, because my touch is known; but who'd think of checking an
amusement park?" He turned as Cal made a noise in his throat. The
Vermonter was a study in outraged sensibilities.

"You--you swine," he said, a typical Victorian hero facing the
mustache-twisting villain. "You stole that money--"

"My morals and your morals, Cal," said Watkins as genially as he could,
"are probably divergent, but it doesn't make a whale of a difference
now, does it?"

Full turned to his wife and began to mutter to her.

Villa said, "I don't like crooks, I run a respectable stand and I am an
honest man," and scratching his hand where the healed burn was, he
turned away likewise. Summersby was sitting on the tire, and only Adam
looked sympathetic. The boy wasn't crooked, that was plain, but Watkins
had the glamor that a big-time thief has for the young, the fake aura of
Robin-Hoodism.

He shook his head. He'd had to spill it. For a while they'd trusted him
and now he was a pariah.

The food panel opened and something plumped in. Watkins glanced at his
chronograph. Ten o'clock Saturday. He went over to the food.

It was a big, glossy chocolate-brown vulture with a blue head.

"Well," said Adam. "Well, now, I don't know."

"They pulled a boner this time," said Watkins. "Unless it's part of the
conditioning."

Villa picked it up. "It weighs many pounds. It's warm, just killed. I
don't want any of it." He dropped it on the straw. "With my spices,
perhaps; but