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.

"It got broke a little, somehow," remarked the boy; "it's wings are
awful brittle."

"Yes, they are," assented Anderson.

"I had to chase it quite a spell," said the boy, with an evident
desire not to have his efforts underestimated.

"Yes, I don't doubt it," replied Anderson, with gratitude well
simulated.

"It seemed rather a pity to kill such a pretty butterfly as that,"
remarked the boy, unexpectedly, "but I thought you'd like it."

"Yes, I like to have a nice collection of butterflies," replied
Anderson, with a faint inflection of apology. In reality, the
butterflies' side of it had failed to occur to him before, and he
felt that an appeal to science in such a case was rather feeble. Then
the boy helped him out.

"Well," said he, "I do suppose that a butterfly don't live very long,
anyhow; he has to die pretty soon, and it's better for human beings
to have him stuck on a pin and put where they can see how handsome he
is, rather than have him stay out in the fields, where