Maybe I ought to let someone know. I figure I’ll test Pop out, just casual like. “Some queer-looking types hanging around this neighborhood,” I say at dinner. “I saw a tough-looking guy hanging around Number Forty-six this afternoon. Might have been a burglar, even.”
I figure Pop’ll at least ask me what he was doing, and maybe I’ll tell him the whole thing—about Cat and the cage. But Pop says, “In case you didn’t know it, burglars do not all look like Humphrey Bogart, and they don’t wear signs.”
“Thanks for the news,” I say and go on eating my dinner. Even if Pop does make me sore, I’m not going to pass up steak and onions, which we don’t have very often.
However, the next day I’m walking along Twenty-first Street and I see the super of Forty-six standing by the back entrance, so I figure I’ll try again. I say to him, “Us kids were playing ball here yesterday, and we saw a strange-looking guy sneak into your cellar. It wasn’t a delivery boy.”
“Yeah? You sure it wasn’t you or one of your juvenile pals trying to swipe a bike? How come you have to play ball right here?”
“I don’t swipe bikes. I got one of my own. New. A Raleigh. Better than any junk you got in there.”
“What d’you know about what I got in there, wise guy?”
“Aw, forget it.” I realize he’s just getting suspicious of me. That’s what comes of trying to be a big public-spirited citizen. I decide my burglar, whoever he is, is a lot nicer than the super, and I hope he got a fat haul.
Next day it looks like maybe he did just that. The local paper, _Town and Village_, has a headline: “Gramercy Park Cellar Robbed.” I read down the article:
“The superintendent, Fred Snood, checked the cellar storage cages, after a passing youth hinted to him that there had been a robbery. He found one cage open and a suitcase missing. Police theorize that the youth may have been the burglar, or an accomplice with a guilty conscience or a grudge, and they are hunting him for questioning. Mr. Snood described him as about sixteen years of age, medium height, with a long ‘ducktail’ haircut, and wearing a heavy black sweater. They are also checking second-hand stores for the stolen suitcase.”
The burglar stole a suitcase with valuable papers and some silver and jewelry in it. But the guy they were hunting for—I read the paragraph over and feel green. That’s me. I get up and look in the mirror. In other circumstances I’d like being taken for sixteen instead of fourteen, which I am. I smooth my hair and squint at the back of it. The ducktail is fine.