"School going all right, Jerry?" asked his father.

Jerry was at the dining room table after dinner doing homework. He had a list of geography questions and was supposed to write down the answers. That meant either looking them up in the book or asking his father. Jerry's dad knew a good deal about geography, yet after answering a few questions he was likely to say, "How can you expect to learn if you don't find out for yourself?" He seemed to be in a good humor tonight. Jerry thought he might be good for answers to at least three questions of the ten.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not failing anything at school," said Jerry.

"Glad to hear it. I thought you've looked lately as if something were worrying you. If your arithmetic is giving you trouble again, maybe I can give you a little help."

"Arithmetic's not so hard after you get the hang of it. I got a hundred in an arithmetic test day before yesterday."

"Good for you. Keep up the good work. I expect you to be good college material, you know, and that's not too many years ahead."

The words "college material" weighed Jerry's spirits. It seemed such a long stretch of school before he would be ready for college. And all that time he would be expected to do good work, good the rest of this term in order to be good in junior high, even better in junior high to be good in high school, and then you had to be a regular whiz on wheels in senior high to be good college material. So much excellence expected of him made Jerry feel tired.

"Guess I'll do the rest of this tomorrow morning before school," he said.

"Finish it now," ordered his father. "You know you never have time to do homework before school."

"Could be a first time," said Jerry, but he bent over his paper again. "What are the chief products of Central America?" he asked.

"That's rather a large question," said Mr. Martin. "Let's see."

While his father was calling to mind the products of Central America, Jerry was thinking of the pleasant fact that there were only a few more days before he could settle the bill at Bartlett's store. And what a relief it would be to have that charge account off his mind! Jerry thought how surprised his father would be if he knew the cause of his improvement in arithmetic. Jerry had not realized at first that all that adding and subtracting when he made change was helping his arithmetic, but now he could tell that he could add and subtract much faster. After bringing his mother the wrong change just once and having to pretend to go back to the store when he went only as far as Mr. Bullfinch's, Jerry had learned that it paid to be accurate.

"Bananas, coffee, and some silver," said Mr. Martin.

With difficulty Jerry's mind came back to geography. But he had forgotten which question he had asked his father. "Is that the answer to number four?" he asked.

"If you can't keep your mind on your work I'm not going to help you. Look up your own answers. How can you expect to learn if you don't find out for yourself?" Mr. Martin took the evening paper into the living room.

Cathy, who was sitting at the other end of the dining room table reading, looked up and laughed. "You didn't get much out of Daddy this time, did you?"

Jerry saw that the jacket of the book Cathy was reading had a picture of a girl and a boy walking together, with the boy carrying a lot of books. Hers as well as his, Jerry guessed. Catch him carrying a girl's books. "I suppose you have your homework all done," he snarled at Cathy.

"Of course, bird-brain."

"Bird-brain! If I have the brains of a bird you haven't any more than a—than a cockroach," said Jerry, which was the worst he could think of to say just then.

"Boys aren't supposed to be so rude to girls. You're the limit. The utter, utter limit."

"Who says so?"

"I say so."

"You!" Jerry packed so much scorn into the word that Cathy looked at him in surprise.

"What's eating you lately?" she asked.

Jerry gathered his books and papers together. If Cathy began being nice to him for a change he might find himself confiding to her. It had made him uneasy to be alone with her ever since he had started that charge account business. He would be safer now up in his own room.

"I can't study here where you keep jawing at me," he complained.

"Well, I like that. I hardly opened my mouth and now you—"

"Like it or lump it," cried Jerry from the doorway. "Today is Thursday," thought Jerry, as he ran upstairs. "Monday will be the first. That will be the day. All I have to do is hold out till the first of the week."

On Friday, Mrs. Martin for once did not need anything at the store. Of course she had a big order for Saturday morning. So much that she thought of taking the car, with Jerry going along to help with the carrying, but Jerry said he could manage perfectly well with his cart.

"No sense wasting gas when you have me to go to the store for you," he said.

"Are you sure you're feeling all right?" asked his mother. "I can't think what has gotten in to you to be so obliging. But it's nice to have a boy so willing to run errands," she said, giving Jerry the grocery list. "Sure you can manage?"

Jerry was sure.

When he stopped by at the Bullfinches' on his way back from the store—he had to get change from a twenty this time—Mr. Bullfinch was getting ready to go to an auction out in Rockville.

"How'd you like to come with me?" he invited Jerry. Mr. Bullfinch had been especially cordial to him lately as if to make up for having suspected him of housebreaking. "If you've never been to an auction you might find it interesting."

Jerry liked the idea. He said he would be right back as soon as he took the groceries home and asked his mother if he could go.

"Fine. Hope you can go. I'll be glad of your company," said Mr. Bullfinch.

Ten minutes later Jerry and Mr. Bullfinch were on their way to Rockville. Jerry had never ridden in Mr. Bullfinch's car before. It was not the car that was jerky, Jerry discovered, but Mr. Bullfinch. Still, he was a careful driver except when he got to talking. Then he seemed to forget his was not the only car on the road and the other cars honked at him. Yet Mr. Bullfinch was good at missing the other cars. At the very edge of collision he was a marvelous driver. Jerry held on to the door pull most of the time.

It was not a long drive to Rockville. They made it by five after ten, Jerry noticed by a clock over a bank near where Mr. Bullfinch parked the car.

"This is one of the smaller auction houses," explained Mr. Bullfinch, as he led the way into a place that looked to Jerry like a secondhand furniture store. "But sometimes the most interesting items are put up at small auctions."

Jerry jingled the small change in his pocket. His entire wealth at the moment was forty-seven cents, hardly enough to buy either a usual or unusual item. He noticed that Mr. Bullfinch looked less calm and dignified than usual. There was a gleam of excitement in his eyes, an intensity in his voice. Jerry could tell that Mr. Bullfinch felt the same about auctions as Jerry did about going to baseball games out at Griffith Stadium.

Folding chairs had been set up in the middle of the big room where the auction was being held. Furniture and stuff was jammed all around, even at the back of the platform where the auctioneer stood. He was a thick-set, big-mouthed man wearing a blue and red plaid sport shirt.

"That's Jim Bean. He always puts on a good show," said Mr. Bullfinch.

As Mr. Bullfinch and Jerry took seats in the back row, the auctioneer was holding up a table lamp.

"Now here is something really beautiful," he was saying in a slightly hoarse yet persuasive voice. "This lamp has a base of real Chinese porcelain. Old Chinese porcelain and that's the most valuable, as all of you here know. Probably should be in a museum. Shade's a bit worn but it's easy enough to get one of those. Now I hope I'm going to hear a starting bid of ten for this exquisite piece of antique Chinese porcelain. Worth every cent of fifty or more but I'm willing to start it at ten."

"One dollar," said Mr. Bullfinch.

"That bid," said the auctioneer, "was too low for me to hear."

"Two," snapped a lady in the front row.

A man two seats to the left of Jerry held up a finger.

"Three I'm bid. Who will make it five?" said Mr. Bean.

"Three-fifty," said Mr. Bullfinch.

"Come, come," said Mr. Bean, "I can't accept bids of peanuts. Three-fifty I'm offered. We're just starting, folks. Do I hear five?"

Jerry could not tell for sure but somebody in the front row must have indicated a bid of five, for now Mr. Bean was droning, "Five I have. Who will make it ten? Worth many times more. Five I have for this museum piece. Five I have."

The lamp was going to be sold for five, Jerry thought, when Mr. Bullfinch sat up straight and snapped, "Six!" His eyes shone. He was really enjoying himself.

It was like a game, Jerry thought, and wished he dared risk a bid. Better not, he decided, for there was always the chance that nobody would bid higher and he would be stuck with something he did not want and could not pay for. Better be on the safe side and let Mr. Bullfinch do the bidding. That was almost as much fun as doing it himself.

The lamp was finally sold to the lady in the front row who had first bid against Mr. Bullfinch. Sold to her for nine dollars, which Mr. Bean said was giving it away.

"Glad I didn't get it. We already have too many lamps," Mr. Bullfinch said in a low voice to Jerry, which proved that he had been bidding for the sport of it.

Mr. Bullfinch did not open his mouth when the next few items were sold. After starting the ball rolling he was content to let others keep it rolling for a while. Besides, a bed, two French chairs, and a worn oriental rug were not unusual enough to interest him. Such items came up, he explained to Jerry, at nearly every auction held in Washington or its suburbs. But when Mr. Bean was handed a large cage with a large bird in it by one of his helpers, Mr. Bullfinch sat up straight on the edge of his chair again.

"Never knew a parrot to be auctioned off before," he told Jerry.

"Diplomat leaving the country says, 'Sell everything,' and that included this handsome bird. Speaks Spanish, they tell me. Wish Polly would oblige us by saying something in Spanish, but he—I understand it's a male—is too shy to speak before strangers. He's been well taken care of. Wonderful gloss to his feathers," praised Mr. Bean. "Beautiful color. Give an accent to any dÉcor, modern or traditional, besides being a wonderful pet. Now who is going to be the lucky owner of this gorgeous bird?"

Jerry was surprised that Mr. Bullfinch did not begin the bidding, which started at a disgusting low of fifty cents. Mr. Bullfinch did not speak until the bidding rose to three dollars. Then, "Five dollars," he said in a firm voice that dared anybody to bid higher. Since nobody did, the parrot was Mr. Bullfinch's for five dollars.

"Guess I could have had it for four," Mr. Bullfinch said to Jerry. "Thought it would go to seven."

Jerry was very glad that Mr. Bullfinch's had been the winning bid. It would be interesting to have a Spanish-speaking parrot next door, though Jerry would have bid for the parrot himself if he had had the money. The only pet the Martin family had was Bibsy. "Wish we had a parrot," thought Jerry.

Jerry rather lost interest in the auction after the high spot of selling the parrot. Mr. Bullfinch put in a bid once in a while but let his bid be topped.

Since Mr. Bullfinch already had a parrot cage, he could keep one cage in the house and the other out in the yard, Jerry was thinking, as a mahogany sewing table was lifted to the auctioneer's platform. Neither Jerry nor Mr. Bullfinch was interested in mahogany sewing tables. Jerry's eyes wandered. He hardly heard Mr. Bean praise the sewing table and accept the first bid. Jerry turned his head and looked around and there was Bill Ellis, a classmate of Jerry's in the sixth. The man beside him was his father. Jerry had seen him enough times to recognize him.

Bill saw Jerry and grinned and Jerry put up a hand in greeting.

"Sold for three dollars to the young man in the red jacket in the back row," said the auctioneer.

Horrified, Jerry realized that his raised arm had been interpreted as a bid and that he had just bought a mahogany sewing table. "I don't want it. It was a mistake," he wanted to say, but before he could get the words out, Mr. Bean was extolling the beauties of a large oil painting. Jerry had missed his chance to speak up.

"Be a nice present for your mother," said Mr. Bullfinch.

Jerry was sunk in despair. He thought that if you bought something at an auction you had to keep it. What was he going to do when he and Mr. Bullfinch went up to the desk near the door where you paid and what you had bought was brought out to you?

"Forty-seven cents isn't any three dollars," thought Jerry dismally. Nor did he have any more at home.

Suddenly Jerry thought of a place where there was plenty of ready money. In Mr. Bullfinch's grandfather clock. Suppose he told the man at the desk that he did not have enough money on him but would be right back with some. Then he could borrow enough to pay for the sewing table—minus forty-seven cents. Of course it was Mr. Bartlett's money, not his, but as soon as he got back from paying for the sewing table Jerry could go around the neighborhood and get a lawn or two to mow and get money to pay back to Mr. Bartlett. But suppose nobody wanted a lawn mowed? And how would he get back and forth between Rockville and Washington? On a bus, maybe.

"I believe I've had about enough of this," said Mr. Bullfinch, and he led the way to the desk where the paying for and delivery of goods took place.

Jerry did a lot of thinking as he followed Mr. Bullfinch. He remembered reading a story about a man who worked in a bank and took money, expecting to pay it back, only he couldn't. If Jerry borrowed some of Mr. Bartlett's money, that wouldn't be much different from what the man in the bank did. And he had gone to jail.

"Anyway, it wouldn't be honest," thought Jerry, and knew he couldn't get money to pay for the sewing table that way. What the man at the desk would say to him when he had to confess he couldn't pay, Jerry dreaded to find out.

Mr. Bullfinch paid for his parrot. Jerry moved up toward the desk. He was pale behind his freckles. He could see a man bringing over the mahogany sewing table. Just then, somebody touched Jerry's arm.

"I'll give you a dollar more than you paid for that sewing table," said a woman in a red hat.

Color rushed back into Jerry's face. He beamed at the woman. "Pay the man three dollars and you can have it," he said.

On their way out to the car—and Mr. Bullfinch very kindly let Jerry carry the cage with the parrot in it—Mr. Bullfinch explained that it would have been quite all right for Jerry to have made a dollar on the sewing table. "If somebody offers you more than you have paid it's all right to take it. But what made you decide you didn't want the little sewing table?"

"My mother has a sewing table," said Jerry.

"Good thing then you got rid of it," said Mr. Bullfinch. "Sometimes I'm not so lucky at getting rid of something I've bought and don't need. I get a bit carried away when I get to bidding."

Mr. Bullfinch looked calm and dignified again, but Jerry remembered how thrilled he had looked at the auction.

"Did you enjoy going to an auction?" asked Mr. Bullfinch.

"I enjoyed most of it," said Jerry. But nobody would ever know, he thought, slightly swinging the heavy cage, how relieved he had been to get rid of that mahogany sewing table. He rather wished now, though, that he had accepted that extra dollar.