Jerry thought of burying Mr. Bartlett's money somewhere in the yard. He gave up that idea when he considered the complication of digging it up every time he came back from the store and had to make change. Besides, this time of year his mother was likely to be planting flowers all over the place.

Jerry decided he might as well watch the moving in next door while he was trying to think of a safe hiding place for Mr. Bartlett's money. Better keep out of sight from the front window of his house, though. Jerry climbed the picket fence that separated his yard from Mr. Bullfinch's. Then, crouching low, he ran from bush to bush and took his stand in front of a weigela bush that screened him from being seen by his family.

The movers were big, brawny men. Jerry saw them lift a huge wardrobe as if it were light as a feather. Nearly as light, anyway. As they took it in the house, a man came out. He was tall and thin and slightly stooped, with a thatch of silver-gray hair. Must be Mr. Bullfinch, Jerry thought, and wondered if he shouldn't leave before being asked to. Jerry had learned that you never can tell about people wanting you or not wanting you in their yards.

Mr. Bullfinch saw Jerry and walked toward him. He smiled with his whole face, especially his eyes, and Jerry smiled back a bit shyly. "I like to watch people moving in," Jerry said.

"So do I except when I'm the one being moved. Live around here, do you? Seems a pleasant neighborhood."

"Next door. It is a nice neighborhood. A few cranky people on this street but not many. Say, what a whopper of a chair!"

The movers had taken an enormous brown leather chair out of the van and were taking it in the front door.

"I have to tell them where I want it put. Come on in," Mr. Bullfinch invited Jerry.

Jerry always enjoyed going in a strange house. He tagged after Mr. Bullfinch as he directed the movers to deposit the big chair in front of the fireplace in the den.

"Some chair! Is it for you to sit in?" asked Jerry.

"It's a remarkable chair. It does tricks. Runs by electricity," said Mr. Bullfinch, taking an electric cord from the seat and unwinding it. He looked around and found an outlet and put in the plug. "Want to try it out?" he asked Jerry. "Sit down in the chair and press the button on the right arm and see what happens."

Jerry was not at all sure he wanted to try out the tricks of the chair. "I don't know if I have time right now," he said. Mr. Bullfinch did not look like the sort of man who would install an electric chair, the kind they have in penitentiaries, in his house and begin to execute his neighbors the first day he moved in. Still, better be safe than sorry, Jerry reasoned.

"I'll show you how it works," said Mr. Bullfinch, sitting down in the chair. He pressed a button to the right, and the back of the chair went down and the part that hung down in front came up, making what looked like a narrow cot.

"That's not half of it," said Mr. Bullfinch, punching another button.

Jerry gasped as the right arm of the chair swung over and began to rub Mr. Bullfinch's stomach while the whole contraption jerked up and down.

"Takes plenty of power to do that," said Mr. Bullfinch from his reclining position. "I shudder to think of what my electric bill will be if I use it often." He laughed heartily. "It tickles." Then he pushed the button that stopped the jerking and massaging and the one that made the chair regain its chair-like appearance. And there was Mr. Bullfinch sitting up again, looking just the same except that his hair was a little rumpled.

"It's supposed to reduce you if you're too fat and build you up if you're too thin. It's an exerciser and health builder. Trade name for it is the Excello. Believe I'll call it the Bumper. It does thump and bump a bit, you know. Now do you want to try it?"

It was nice of Mr. Bullfinch to forget that Jerry had just said he didn't have time to try it out. Jerry warmed to his new neighbor. So now he sat in the big chair and pushed the buttons, roaring with laughter when the right arm of the chair began to massage his stomach.

"You have hardly enough middle to rub," said Mr. Bullfinch. He didn't hurry Jerry. He let him try out the chair for as long as he wanted to.

When Jerry got up out of the chair the paper bag containing all of Mr. Bartlett's change fell from his pocket. The bag broke and the money rolled in all directions.

Mr. Bullfinch helped Jerry pick up the money. Not having another paper bag at hand, Mr. Bullfinch gave Jerry a worn tobacco pouch to put the money in. He did not ask why Jerry happened to be carrying so much money in his pocket.

"Ever go to auctions?" asked Mr. Bullfinch, as Jerry crammed the tobacco pouch in his pants pocket. The pocket tore slightly. His mother would be after him for that, Jerry thought worriedly.

"Double darn!" said Jerry. "I'm not talking to you—I'm just sorry I tore my pocket," Jerry said to Mr. Bullfinch.

"Well, 'double darn' seems an appropriate remark for a torn pocket," said Mr. Bullfinch. "Did you say you'd ever been to an auction?"

Jerry hadn't and said so.

"Auctions are my hobby," said Mr. Bullfinch. "People need to have a hobby when they retire and mine is auctions. Greatest sport I know of. Course you're likely to pick up a few things you haven't any immediate need for but at least you get something for your money. Mrs. Bullfinch scolds me sometimes for what I buy but I can't resist the fun of bidding. Up to a point, that is. I set myself a limit on what I'll spend at an auction. Guess I do get stuck with some strange objects once in a while. You should have seen Mrs. Bullfinch's face when I brought home a job lot of empty cages."

"Don't you have pets to put in any of them?" Jerry's face showed his disappointment. If not a chimp he had hoped for a parrot or at least a canary.

"Not a one," said Mr. Bullfinch. "Guess I'll have to wait till they auction off some of the animals in the Washington zoo."

"They'll never do that."

"I was only joking. Do you have any pets?"

"Just a cat named Bibsy because she has a white front. Like a bib, you know."

"Well, if I see a mouse around here I hope you'll lend me Bibsy."

"I will." Jerry sensed that Mr. Bullfinch thought it was time for him to be leaving. And Jerry was about to when a woman screamed loud as a fire siren.

"My wife!" cried Mr. Bullfinch and rushed toward the back of the house, Jerry following him.

Out in the kitchen, standing on a high stool, was Mrs. Bullfinch. She was a small plump woman wearing a pink apron. She looked terrified.

"A spider!" she gasped. "I had a broom and was making sure there were no spiders around the ceiling when the biggest spider I've ever seen in my life ran down the broom handle. It ran right across my arm." She shuddered till the stool she was standing on shook. "I brushed it off. It was horrible. I didn't see where it went but it's in this room somewhere. And I won't get off this stool until it's found and killed."

"Better get down, dear," said her husband. "There are two of us here to protect you." He looked around the room for the spider, opening cupboard doors to see if it had run in a cupboard. "It's taken off for parts unknown by this time," he said soothingly. "Come on, get down. You'll want to tell the movers where to put the piano."

"It's still in this room. I know it. If I get down it might run up my leg. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

She was pretty heavy for that stool, Jerry thought, expecting one of its legs to crack any minute. She's like Little Miss Muffett, afraid of spiders—only she climbed a stool instead of being frightened away. He glanced down at the broom on the floor where Mrs. Bullfinch had thrown it. A large hairy spider was just crawling out of the broomstraws.

Jerry had never moved more quickly. Three steps and he had brought his foot down hard. Jerry did not enjoy killing even a spider but this time it seemed necessary, though he carefully refrained from looking at the dead insect.

"Good boy!" said Mr. Bullfinch.

Mrs. Bullfinch, with a little help from her husband, got down from the stool. She thanked Jerry earnestly and effusively.

"I'll not forget this. Someday I hope to do something for you. You don't know how obliged to you I am. That spider might have killed me."

Jerry did not think that the spider had been the kind that would have a bite that killed. Being thought a hero was pleasant, however. "Think nothing of it," he said, looking more cocky than modest in spite of his words.

"Where you want the pianer?" shouted one of the movers, and Mrs. Bullfinch bustled off to the living room.

There did not seem to be any reason for Jerry to stay any longer. He had a feeling that Mr. Bullfinch, though still very polite, had things he wanted to see to. So Jerry murmured something about having to get home and Mr. Bullfinch told him again that he was indebted to him for killing the spider.

"I never knew anybody as afraid of spiders as Mrs. Bullfinch," he said. "Everybody has something he's afraid of, I guess. With Mrs. Bullfinch it's spiders."

Jerry didn't know if he should leave by the back or the front door but Mr. Bullfinch led the way to the front. Jerry admired the grandfather clock in the front hall. On the glass above its face there was a painted globe in pale green and yellow. Jerry had almost reached the front door when the clock struck five—long, solemn sounds of great dignity.

"That sure is a big clock," said Jerry.

"I didn't buy that at an auction, it was in the family," said Mr. Bullfinch. "When I was a little boy I once hid inside when we were playing hide and seek. That was the time I stopped the clock," he chuckled.

Suddenly Jerry thought of a safe hiding place for Mr. Bartlett's money. What Mr. Bullfinch had said about hiding in the clock had given him the idea.

"Say," he said with barely controlled excitement, "would you mind if I kept the money I have on me in your clock?"

Mr. Bartlett gave Jerry a long appraising look. Then his eyes lit up in one of his nice smiles. "Not at all. Not at all," he said cordially.

"I may need to come and get some out or put some in now and then. If that would not be making too much trouble."

"Not at all. Not at all. Come any time you like. I've never run a bank before. New experience for me."

Jerry could tell that Mr. Bullfinch was almost making fun of him. Never mind, he was letting him keep Mr. Bartlett's money in the bottom of the clock. And how grateful Jerry was to Mr. Bullfinch for not asking any embarrassing questions about the money! Even before he had shut the clock door on Mr. Bartlett's money and had started for home, Jerry had decided that he liked his new neighbor, Mr. Bullfinch. He liked him a lot.