Then, suddenly, pell-mell into the office, starling the great cat to that extent that he sprang from his red cushion on the window-ledge, and slunk, flattening his long body against the floor, under the table, came the boy Eddy Carroll.  The boy stood staring at him rather shamefacedly, though every muscle in his small body seemed on a twitch with the restrained impulse of flight.

“Well,” said Anderson, finally, “what’s the trouble, sir?”

Then the boy found his tongue.  He came close to the man.

“Say,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “jest let a feller stay in here a minute, will you?”

Anderson nodded readily.  He understood, or thought he did.  He immediately jumped to the conclusion that the teasing boys were at work again.  He felt a little astonished at this headlong flight to cover of the boy who had so manfully stood at bay a few hours before.  However, he was a little fellow, and there had been a good many of his opponents.  He felt a pleasant thrill of fatherliness and protection.  He looked kindly into the little, pink-flushed face.  “Very well, my son,” said he.  “Stay as long as you like.  Take a seat.”  The boy sat down.  His legs were too short for his feet to touch the floor, so he swung them.  He gazed ingratiatingly at Anderson, and now and then cast an apprehensive glance towards the door of the office.  Anderson continued mounting his butterflies, and paid no attention to him, and the boy seemed to respect his silence.  Presently the great cat emerged quite boldly from his refuge under the table, crouched, calculated the distance, and leaped softly back to his red cushion.  The boy hitched his chair nearer, and began stroking the cat gently and lovingly with his little boy-hand, hardened with climbing and playing.  The cat stretched himself luxuriously, pricked his claws in and out, shut his eyes, and purred again quite loudly.  Again the little room sang with the song of the river, the wind in the trees, and the cat’s somnolent note.  The afternoon light rippled full of green reflections through the room.  The boy’s small head appeared in it like a flower.  He smiled tenderly at the cat.  Anderson, glancing at him over his butterflies, thought what an angelic aspect he had.  He looked a darling of a boy.

The boy, stroking the cat, met the man’s kindly approving eyes, and he smiled a smile of utter confidence and trust, which conveyed delicious flattery.  Then suddenly the hand stroking the cat desisted and made a dive into a small jacket-pocket and emerged with a treasure.  It was a great butterfly, much dilapidated as to its gorgeous wings, but the boy looked gloatingly from it to the man.

“I got it for you,” he whispered, with another glance at the office door.  Anderson recognized, with the dismay of a collector, a fine specimen, which he had sought in vain, made utterly worthless by ruthless handling, but he controlled himself.  “Thank you,” he said, and took the poor, despoiled beauty and laid it carefully on the table.