“Oh, it was nothing,” I answered, and I looked down at the spot between the bricks that I was poking with the umbrella I had just recaptured. He laughed, but not as I had ever heard him laugh before; this was a tight, short laugh that didn’t seem as if it had much mirth in it. “Well, just as you will have it,” he stated, “but--_I know_.” “Mr. Deane,” I said, “will you _please_ take my cream puffs?” He said, “_No_, my dear.” Said it with his chin set and his head high. I waited for a moment, looking up at him. “Won’t you _please_?” I said, and I was perfectly amazed; my voice shook. “You know I’m hungry, don’t you?” he asked stiffly. I nodded, “That’s the reason I’m trying to give them to you,” I explained. “I don’t need them; Miss Julianna always gives us nice meals, and I only got them for diversion. I thought I’d eat them coming home because Mr. Paggi makes me nervous, but I’d forgotten my best suit, and that I had to carry an umbrella--and that made eating them difficult--” I paused, and looked up to see that my new friend wasn’t looking over my head any more, but down at me. “It’s a devil of an agent who is making my trouble,” he confided, “he gave me an order, and now--try as hard as I may--I can’t make the thing suit him; and I can’t tell now whether he’s right, or whether he wants to revoke the order and is doing it by finding fault. You see, I can’t see the thing straight any more--” Suddenly I thought of Mr. Wake, who knows a great deal about pictures, and I felt that he would help Sam Deane; I was _sure_ of it. It made me smile. “I _know_,” I said, “that things will change soon--” Then Sam Deane said something that was kind, but of course nonsense. He said, “They have changed; you--you’ve made them--” I poked the hole between the bricks after I said thank you, and then I realized that it must be getting late, and that I would be late for dinner if I didn’t hurry, so I held out the bag. “_I would take them from you_,” I said, and after a second of hesitation he took them. He didn’t thank me at all; but he clamped the bag of cream puffs under his arm--he must have had to scrape them off the paper when he came to eat them--and then he put both his hands around my un-umbrellaed hand, and for a minute held it very tightly. “I--can’t say anything,” he said in a funny, jerky way. “Oh, that’s all right,” I answered. And he laughed a little, and he did that in a jerky way too. Then he said, “You turn on your light, and switch it on and off three or four times, will you, when you get in? I’ll want to know that you’re all right.” “I will,” I promised. “And look here, you won’t be homesick, will you?”