“The bad boys will steal them,” said the Little Man to himself, looking at the grapes. “They will not bring good to any one, only stomach-aches.” Carlo wondered what he could possibly mean. Still the Little Man stared around the arbor, nodding his head slowly up and down, as if making up his mind about something very important. At last he turned to Carlo and asked suddenly,-- “Do you know where I came from?” “No,” said Carlo. “I have been wondering. You do not seem to belong to this country at all.” “I don’t,” said the Little Man. “They don’t even believe in me here, so they never, never see me--how could they? The babies who play over there,”--and he twisted his thumb toward the fountain and the sand-heap,--“even if they were to come in here now, could not see me. For their stupid nurses have told them that I don’t exist. Perhaps there might be one or two who still believe; and of them I should have to be very careful. For I don’t want to be discovered. But they do not often come here.” “I come here often,” said Carlo. “Of course,” chuckled the Little Man, “naturally!” “But how happens it that you are here?” asked Carlo, eagerly. “Why, I came with you, to be sure. I am the Little Man of your father’s house. And when you left the dear old country over the sea you brought me with you.” The Little Man sighed. Carlo sighed too. But quickly he remembered to be polite. “It was very good of you to come,” he said. “Not at all,” answered the Little Man. “I had to follow. Some of them bring poison creatures in the fruit which they sell,--tarantulas and scorpions. Some of them bring measles, and the evil-eye, and other dreadful things. But you brought _me_, and I have been watching over you ever since. I am glad you come here every day, so I can live in this very nice place. Now I am going to help you.” Carlo thanked him, but he seemed not to hear. Nimbly as a squirrel he was climbing up the vine which draped the arbor with its leaves and grapes. Presently down he came again, and in his hand he held a fine bunch of grapes, purple and red and green. “It is not stealing,” he said, in a whisper, “for this bunch has stopped ripening; I can tell by signs which a fairy knows. It would soon wither, and would not even attract the bad boys. So I will use it for my purposes. Now, please give me your stick.” Carlo handed him the shorn stick, wondering. With a few deft knots the Little Man tied the bunch of grapes to the handle, where the balloons used to bob. “What!” he cried, nodding delightedly, “There you are! Now of course you must go to sleep again. I cannot let you see how the last touches are done.” He tapped Carlo three times on the forehead. Immediately Carlo’s eyes began to close, his head nodded, and before he knew it he was lying on the bench in the arbor, snoring lustily and forgetting all his troubles.