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I guess his big bulk helped him to throw off the shut-eye-juice sooner than most. It wasn't but an hour before he sat up and opened his eyes and began to rub his forehead.

"Funny," he muttered. "Sorry, but I must have dropped off. Horribly rude."

Then he lamped the pile of boodle on the table, and I tightened the grip of my roscoe. But he merely blinked.

"Where'd all this stuff come from, Rajah?" His voice sounded as puzzled as his eyes looked. "Why, some of it is mine." He reached over and picked up the fattest wallet, the diamond tiepin, and a few other trifles.

"It came out of your pockets, my fine-feathered friend," I assured him. "Before that, it seems to have come from a number of places."

He sighed. Then he looked at me like a dog that knows it needs a beating. "All right, Rajah," he said. "I may as well admit it. I'm a kleptomaniac. I take things and don't even know it. That's why I'm not allowed out at home. This morning I got away from them."

The eyes had me again. He was telling the truth, and he looked like a kid that expected to be told to go sit in a corner. And if that was true . . .

I sat up suddenly. An electric light seemed to be turned on inside my head. "Let me see that wallet you say is yours," I barked at him.

He handed it over like a lamb. I looked at the identifi-cation. Yes, Mr. Gupstein. Cadwallader Van Aylslea. Plenty of identification to prove it.

"Listen, Rajah," he was begging. "Don't send me back. They keep me a prisoner there. Let me stay here with you for a while anyway before I go back."

By that time I was pacing up and down the room. I had an idea, and my idea was having pups.

I looked at him for a long minute before I opened up.

"Listen, Cadwallader," I told him, "I'll let you stay here on a few terms. One is that you never go out unless we go together. If you happen to pinch anything, 111 take care of it and see that it goes back where it belongs. I'm a whiz at telling where things like that belong, Cadwallader."

"Gee, that's swell of you. I--"

"And another thing," I went on. "If and when you're found by your folks, you'll never mention me. You'll tell them you don't remember where you've been. Same goes; for cops. Okay?"

He wrung my hand so hard I thought I'd lose a finger.

I took all the stuff from the table, except what he said was his, out to the kitchen. I put all the currency in my own billfold, and put the empties and the junk in the in-cinerator. I put the jewelry where I usually keep stuff like that.

All in all, it was still nearly a thousand bucks. And he'd collected it in a couple of hours or so, I figured. I began to add figures and count unhatched chickens until I got dizzy.

"Cadwallader," I said, when I came back to the living room. "I've got an errand downtown. Want to come with me?"

He did. Until almost dark I led him through crowded stores and gave him every chance; to acquit himself nobly. And I kept him clear of counters where he might fill valuable space in his pockets with cheap junk.

It was something of a shock when I got in the taxi to take him back home with me, to discover my wallet was gone again. So were my cigarettes, but I had enough change loose in a trouser pocket to pay the cab.

I grinned to myself, Mr. Gupstein, but it was a grin of chagrin. Twice in one day I'd been robbed and hadn't known it.

"Now, Cadwallader, my boy," I said when we were safely in my apartment, "I'll trouble you for my leather back, and if by any chance you collared anything else, give it to me and I'll see that it is all returned where it belongs."

He began to feel in his pockets and an embarrassed look spread over his face. He smiled but it was a sickly-looking smile.

"I'm afraid I haven't got your wallet, Rajah," he said after he'd felt all around. "If you say it's gone, I must have taken it on the way downtown, but I haven't it now."

I remembered all the sugar in that billfold, and, Mr. Gupstein, I must have let out a howl that could have been heard on Staten Island if it had been a clear night. I forgot he was more than twice my size, and I stepped right up and frisked him and I didn't miss a bet.

Then I did it again. Every pocket was as empty as an alderman's cigar box the day after election. I didn't be-lieve it, but there it was.

I pushed him back into a chair. I thought of getting my roscoe but I didn't think I'd need it. I felt mad enough to peel the hide off a tiger bare-handed.

"What's the gag?" I demanded. "Talk fast."

He looked like a four-year-old caught with a jam pot. "Sometimes, Rajah, but not often, my kleptomania works sort of backward. I put things from my own pockets in other people's. It's something I've done only a few times, but this must have been one of them. I'm awfully sorry."

I sighed and sat down. I looked at him, and I guess I wasn't mad any longer. It wasn't his fault. He was telling the truth; I could see that with half an eye. And I could see, too, that he was just about three times as far off his rocker as I'd given him credit for.

Still and all, Mr. Gupstein, I still liked the guy. I began to wonder if I was getting mushy above the eyebrows myself.

Oh well, I thought, I can get the dough back by taking him out a few more times. He'd said his kleptomania didn't go into reverse often. And if I'd start out broke each time, it couldn't do any harm.

So that was that, but after I'd counted all those chickens it was a discouraging evening. You can see that, Mr. Gupstein. I got out a deck of cards and taught him how to play cribbage and he beat me every game until I began to get bored. I decided to pump him a bit.

"Listen, Cadwallader," I began.

"Cadwallader?" he pops back. "That isn't my name." It caught me off guard. "Huh?" says I. "You're Cadwal-lader Van Aylslea!"

"Who's he? I fear there is a mistake of identity."

He was sitting up straight, looking very intently at me, and his right hand had slid between the third and fourth buttons of his shirt. I should have guessed, of course, but I didn't.

But I decided to humor him. "Who are you, then?"

A shrewd look came into his eyes as he swept back from his forehead a lock of hair that wasn't there. "It escapes me for the moment," he temporized. "But no, I shall not lie to you, my friend. I remember, of course, but it is best that I remain incognito."

I began to wonder if I'd bit off more than I could handle. I wondered if he had these spells often, and if so, how I should handle him.

"For all of me," I said a bit disgustedly, "you can re-main anything you want. I'm going out for a paper."

It was time for the morning papers to be out, eleven-thirty, and I wanted to see if any mention was made of a search for a missing nut from the Van Aylslea tree. There wasn't.

I hate to tell you about the next morning, Mr. Gupstein.

When I woke up, there was Cadwallader standing in his undershirt looking out of the window. His right hand was thrust inside his undershirt and he had a carefully coiled spitcurl on his forehead. When he heard me sit up in bed, he turned majestically.

"My good friend," he said, "I have thought it over and I've decided that I may cast aside anonymity and reveal to you in confidence my true identity."

Yeah, Mr. Gupstein, you guessed it. Why do so many nuts think they are Napoleon? Why don't some of them pick on Eddie Cantor or Mussolini?

I didn't know, and of course it would have been useless to ask him, whether this delusion was something tem-porary that he'd been through before, or whether it was here to stay.

I got dressed quick and after breakfast I locked him in to keep him safe from English spies, and I went out and sat in the park to think.

I could, of course, take him out and lose him some-where and wash my hands of the matter. The cops would pick him up and he'd tell them he'd been staying with the Rajah of Rangoon, if he told them anything even that lucid. Stuff like that goes over big at headquarters.