away in his attic. He bounded out of bed wearing a long flannel 10th - - nightgown over long woolen pants, a nightcap, and a leather jacket around his chest. The cops must have realized at once that the indignant white-haired old man belonged to the house, but they had no chance to say so. ‘Back, ye cowardly dog!’ roared grandfather.
‘Back t’ the lines ye goodaam Lily-livered cattle!’ With that, he fetched the officer who found the zither a flat – handed smack alongside his head that sent him sprawling. The others beat a retreat, but not enough; grandfather grabbed zither’s gun from its holster and let fly. The report seemed to crack the rafters; smoke filled the attic. A cop cursed and shot his hand to his shoulder.
Somehow, we all finally got downstairs again and locked the door against the old gentleman. He fired once or twice more in the darkness and then went back to bed. ‘That was grandfather’, I explained to Joe, out of breath. ‘He thinks you’re deserter.’ ‘I’ll say he does,’ said Joe.
The cops were reluctant to leave without getting their hand on somebody besides grandfather; the night had been distinctly a defeat for them. Furthermore, they obviously didn’t like the ‘layout’; something looked – and I can see their viewpoint – phony. They began to poke into things again. A reporter, a thin-faced, wispy man, came up to me.
I had put on one of mother’s dress, not being able to find anything else. The reporter looked at me with mingled suspicion and interest. ‘Just what the hell is the real lowdown here, Bud?’ he asked. I decided to be frank g.
What was the grandfather wearing? h. What conclusions did grandfather jump to when he saw the cops? with him.
‘We had ghosts,’ I said. He gazed at me a long time as if I were a slot machine into which he had, without results, dropped a coin. Then he walked away. The cops followed him, the one grandfather shot holding his now- bandaged arm, cursing and