And while they were shaking hands the boy turned quietly and re-seated himself upon the top step. But Allison gave him more notice than had his daughter Barbara. He stood with his pudgy hands in his pockets, gazing at the averted face, unconcealed and growing amusement in the scrutiny, until Caleb, not yet aware of the boy's woods-taught habit of seeing while seeming not to see, was simultaneously annoyed at Allison's fatuous grin, and glad of the fact that Steve apparently was looking the other way. After a time Allison raised quizzical eyes to Caleb's face. "Wel-l-l?" he intoned, and with a little reluctance as reasonless as it was unnoticed, Caleb answered the inferred question. "This--this is a little friend of mine, Dexter," he said, "down from the hills. He's in to have a look at the city which you have been so instrumental in arousing to its present state of teeming activity. This is Stephen O'Mara. Steve--this is Mr. Allison, Steve!" Then the boy turned and again rose to his feet, and at that moment Caleb could have hugged him for his deliberation. The boy inclined his head; he bowed, without a word. And it was Dexter Allison who first offered a hand. "Glad to make your acquaintance, Stephen," the latter exclaimed with quite violent good humor. "And how are you?" Steve took the hand and closed his brown fingers hard upon the puffy white ones. For an instant he stood, his eyes, grave and inscrutable, full upon Allison's smaller ones. "I'm tol-lable," he drawled soberly. "And--haow be you--yourself?" Allison gasped, stood with mouth agape, and then burst into one of his rather too-frequent, too-hearty laughs. "Well, I'm----" he began his favorite phrase of ejaculation, and then stopped to look down again into the small face before him. "Well, I'm----" and he stopped to chuckle. Then he turned back to Caleb. "I suppose, Cal, you know what this early morning call presages?" he suggested. Caleb recalled himself with an effort from a contemplation of the sudden, prideful something which had warmed him while Steve was shaking hands. He smiled, mechanically. "I suppose it's the usual raid upon the commissary," he answered. Allison mounted heavily to the verandah. "Right!" he exclaimed. "Right! You'll notice that Barbara has already gone on ahead. She's the skirmish line--scouts--videttes--whatever you please to call 'em. There's no-one up yet--none of the family--over to our place. We are hungry, Cal. I hope this is waffle morning?" Caleb smiled at him, less impersonality in the mirth. It was a regular custom, this truancy of Barbara Allison and her father--one of the little human foibles which Caleb often told himself accounted, in part at least, for his real liking of the man. "Waffles it is," he said, and he turned toward the boy. "Would you mind finding Miss Sarah, Steve?" he asked. "Will you tell her, please, that we are to be subjected to another neighborly imposition?"