The boy’s eyes followed him slowly. He went into the office and closed the door behind him. For a long minute he stood looking at Simeon’s desk. Then he went across to it. He sat down before it and tried the lid. It was locked securely, as he had left it. He did not open it, but sat motionless, gazing before him. Dusk settled in the room--shadows crept in from the comers. But the boy had not stirred.... At last he raised himself with a little sigh. He had come back none too soon. His slow, sensitive nature felt things that he could not have said. The president needed him--more than either of them had known! He opened the desk deliberately and took out a handful of papers, sorting out certain ones with mechanical fingers. Even in the dark he knew them; but he turned on the light for a minute to make sure; he selected certain ones and placed them together, slipping them into his pocket. Then he turned out the little looping bulbs and went out, and left the room to the darkness. XI THE next morning a new lock was on the office door and the key lay on the president’s desk when he came in. He glanced at it sharply. “What’s that?” “I ’ve had a new lock put on; the old one was never very good,” said the boy. The man took up the key and slipped it on to his key-ring without comment. A hundred times a day the boy did things without consulting him. If he saw any special significance in this new caution, his face gave no sign and his hand, as it slipped the ring into his pocket, trembled no more than usual. But his glance, as it fell on the boy through the day, held a quiet content. Just how wrong things had been going for the last few weeks only the president of the road knew. It seemed almost as if there were a concerted plan to harrow him--some hidden power, that chose maliciously his weakest spot, at the moment when he was most off his guard. Yet he could never lay his finger on a thing or a person that proved it. He only felt, helplessly enmeshed by circumstance--he, who had always driven others, chuckling at their discomfiture! But with the boy to help--Ah, what could he not do--with the boy! His face lost its driven look. The new awnings shaded the glare from the windows. It was almost comfortable in the little office.