Tom says, “With my dad, you _know_: I’m wrong.”
Hilda comes back just then. She snaps, “If he’s such a drug on the market, why don’t you shut up and forget about him?”
The beach is getting filled up by now, so we pull on our clothes and head for the subway. Tom and Hilda get off in Brooklyn, and I go on to Union Square.
After dinner that night Mom is washing the dishes and Pop is reading the paper, and I figure I might as well dive in.
“Pop,” I say, “there’s this guy I met at the beach. Well, really I mean I met him this spring when I was hunting for Cat, and this guy was in the cellar at Forty-six Gramercy, and he got caught and....”
“Wha-a-a-t?” Pop puts down his paper and takes off his glasses. “Begin again.”
So I give it to him again, slow, and with explanations. I go through the whole business about the filling station and Hilda and NYU, and I’ll say one thing for Pop, when he finally settles down to listen, he listens. I get through, and he puts on his reading glasses and goes to look out the window.
“Do you have this young man’s name and address, or is he just Tom from The Cellar?”
I’d just got it from Tom when we were at the beach. He’s at a Y in Brooklyn, so I tell Pop this.
Pop says, “Tell him to call my office and come in to see me on his next day off. Meanwhile, I’ll bone up on City educational policies in regard to juvenile delinquents.”
He says this perfectly straight, as if there’d be a book on the subject. Then he goes back to his newspaper, so I guess that closes the subject for now.
“Thanks, Pop,” I say and start to go out.
“Entirely welcome,” says Pop. As I get to the door, he adds, “If that cat of yours makes a practice of introducing you to the underworld in other people’s cellars, we can do without him. We probably can anyway.”
[Illustration: Dave talking with veterinarian while holding Cat.]
Cat hadn’t got me into anymore cellars, but I can’t honestly say he’d been sitting home tending his knitting—not him.
One hot morning I went to pick up the milk outside our door, and Cat was sleeping there on the mat. He didn’t even look up at me. After I scratched his ears and talked to him some, he got up and hobbled into the house.
I put him up on my bed, under the light, for inspection. One front claw was torn off, which is why he was limping, his left ear was ripped, and there was quite a bit of fur missing here and there. He curled up on my bed and didn’t move all day.