“Perhaps that would be the best way, Tim. But why wait for the ax to fall? I might be able to help you ward it off—what you’re afraid of. You can kid people along about the cats; tell them you were fooling around to see what would happen. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, they tell me. Maybe with me to help, you could. Or with me to back you up, the blowup would be easier. Easier on your grandparents, too.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“I’m beginning to be sure of that. But things you try to keep hidden may come to light. The kitten—you could hide it, but you don’t want to. You’ve got to risk something to show it.”
“I’ll tell them I read it somewhere.”
“That wasn’t true, then. I thought not. You figured it out.”
There was silence.
Then Timothy Paul said: “Yes, I figured it out. But that’s my secret.”
“It’s safe with me.”
But the boy did not trust him yet. Welles soon learned that he had been tested. Tim took the book home, and returned it, took the library books which Welles got for him, and in due course returned them also. But he talked little and was still wary. Welles could talk all he liked, but he got little or nothing out of Tim. Tim had told all he was going to tell. He would talk about nothing except what any boy would talk about.
After two months of this, during which Welles saw Tim officially once a week and unofficially several times—showing up at the school playground to watch games, or meeting Tim on the paper route and treating him to a soda after it was finished—Welles had learned very little more. He tried again. He had probed no more during the two months, respected the boy’s silence, trying to give him time to get to know and trust him.