"I have only my own carelessness to blame," said Mr. Bullfinch. "You see, I burn charcoal in the fireplace in my den. I keep a big sack of charcoal briquets out in the garage. Well, soon after I put fresh charcoal on the fire—I often read late you know—there was a sharp series of bangs and I realized what had happened."
Then all that banging hadn't been a car backfiring, thought Jerry.
"There is a shelf in the garage over the sack of charcoal," Mr. Bullfinch continued, "and there was a box of cartridges on the shelf. It must be that a few cartridges spilled into the charcoal and they went off when I put them on the fire. Lucky they fired up the chimney instead of in the room. Loosened a few bricks in the chimney and burned a bit of the eaves. No great damage, I'm thankful to say."
"That's the most unusual cause of a fire I ever heard of," said Mr. Martin.
"I don't want the fire to be out so soon," mourned Andy, who had been waked up to come to the fire.
"I'd better get that child to bed," said Mr. Martin.
Jerry would have followed his father but Mr. Bullfinch wanted to thank him for coming over to rescue them, even though they had not needed to be rescued. "But if I hadn't still been up you might have saved our lives," he told Jerry. Then he told Jerry something else that filled Jerry's heart with joy. Jerry was so grateful he could hardly speak.
Jerry kept his cause of gratitude to himself until the family were in the kitchen having a bite to eat.
"Mr. Bullfinch has given Pedro to me," he said, putting a thick layer of grape marmalade and peanut butter on a slice of bread. "A five-dollar parrot and he's worth much more than that and Mr. Bullfinch gave him to me for almost saving his life."
"Oh, no!" said Mrs. Martin.