“I suppose so. I don’t recollect. Have you seen one around?”
Perry almost changed color. “No, sir—that is—I just wondered whether they wore false mustaches.”
“Now, Perry Hull, what sort of nonsense have you been reading?” inquired his mother. “Some of the books you get out of the library aren’t fit for any boy; all about fighting and Indians and—and now it’s burglars, I dare say! I don’t see when you have time for reading, anyway, with all those lessons to study. Your report card last month wasn’t anything to boast of, either.”
“It was all right except math.,” defended Perry. “Gee, if you think my card was punk, you ought to see some of them!”
“I didn’t say anything about ‘punk,’” retorted Mrs. Hull with dignity. “And I’d like to know where you get all the horrid words you use lately. I dare say it’s that Shaw boy. He looks rather common, I think.”
“There, there, Mother, don’t scold him any more,” said the Doctor soothingly. “Slang’s harmless enough. Have a slice of lamb, son?”
Perry dutifully passed his plate and consumed the lamb, not because he had any appetite for it but in order to allay his mother’s suspicions of illness. There were some especially nasty bottles in the Doctor’s office and Perry had long ago vowed never to be ill again! After supper he excused himself early and retired to his room to study. Mrs. Hull smiled commendingly. It was evident to her that her remarks had borne fruit. But Perry didn’t get very much studying done, because he spent much of the evening peeking cautiously around the corner of his window shade. Of course he realized that the safe-breaker would be at the theater in his assumed rôle of pianist, but it had occurred to Perry that possibly he had an accomplice. But the opposite window remained dark all the evening, or at least until after Perry, ready for bed, had sent a final look across the starlit gloom. What happened subsequently he didn’t know, but he dreamed the wildest, most extravagant dreams in which he was at one moment participating in furious deeds of crime and the next, aligned on the side of Justice, was heroically pursuing a whole horde of criminals across the roofs of the city. That the criminals were under the able and even brilliant leadership of Fudge Shaw did not strike him as the least bit incongruous—until the next morning!
When he finally tumbled out of bed, after reviewing his dreams, or as much as he could recall of them, he went first to the window and looked across the back yard. His heart leaped into his throat at what he saw. The last window on the third floor of the brick building was wide-open and there, in plain view of all the world, sat the safe-breaker! A small table was pulled in front of the casement and the safe-breaker was seated at it. On the table were a cup and saucer, some dishes and a newspaper. Perry gazed fascinatedly. The safe-breaker alternately read the paper and ate his breakfast. Perry couldn’t be quite certain, but it appeared that the breakfast consisted of sausage and rolls and coffee. Whatever it was, the man ate with evident enjoyment, slowly, perusing the morning news between mouthfuls. There was no mustache to-day. Instead, the safe-breaker’s face was clean-shaven and undeniably good-looking in a rugged way. He had a rather large nose and a generous mouth and lean cheeks and a very determined-looking chin. His hair was brown, with some glints of red in it where the sunlight touched it. He was attired in quite ordinary clothes, so far as the observer could see, but wore no coat; perhaps because the morning was delightfully warm and the sunlight shone in at his window. Fortunately for Perry, the man never once glanced his way. If he had he might easily have seen a boy in blue pajamas staring fascinatedly across at him with very wide, round eyes. In which case doubtless he would have suspected that he was under surveillance!
Perry was still looking when his mother’s voice summoned him to action. Regretfully he withdrew his gaze and hurried off to the bathroom. When he returned the safe-breaker was still there, but he had finished his breakfast and was smoking a short pipe, still busy with the paper, and so Perry was obliged to leave him, and when he had finished his own repast and raced upstairs again the opposite window was empty. Perry set off to school fairly weighted down with the startling news he had to tell Fudge Shaw, and hoping beyond everything that he would be fortunate enough to meet with that youth before the bell rang. He wasn’t, however, and not until the noon hour did he find a chance to unburden himself. Then, while he and Fudge, together with some two hundred other boys—not to mention an even larger number of girls—sat on the coping around the school grounds and ate their luncheons, he eagerly, almost breathlessly, recounted the story of what he had seen.
Fudge was plainly impressed, and he asked any number of searching and seemingly purposeless questions, but in the end he appeared a little disappointed. “It doesn’t seem,” he said, “that he’d show himself like that if he’s what we think he is. Unless, of course, he’s doing it for a bluff; to avert suspicion, you know.”