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Falco looked from Sam to Sassy. On the one hand, there was Sam, with a smile as kind as Bingo's had been. On the other hand, there was Sassy, and while her face showed no open emnity, he could guess exactly what she was thinking about him. And why shouldn't she? He had been rotten to her brother. That is to say, her brother had been rotten to him, so he had left.
There was a twinge of his conscience, and a realisation that he tried to stomp down. It was becoming plainer to him with each passing moment that he, Falco Brandybuck, had been the one in the wrong, and that it would be his duty to apologise. He would not apologise. He was not wrong.
He turned to Sam, smiling that faint smile once again, and this time it had a rueful look about it.
"I'm afraid I don't have any food, Sammy," he said. "Reggie and I ran out of food some time back, and even if there had been some food left... I lost my pack."
The tones in which he addressed Sam were very comradely. He had always been annoyed at the other lad's grouchiness, but since that first day when the hobbits were all sent floundering in the water, and Falco had pulled Sam out, and the latter had thanked him most graciously... well, Falco didn't feel quite so annoyed with Sam now. Least of all now, when he was giving him a warm, kind welcome!
As for Reggie... Falco had been fully intending to make Reggie feel his bitterness at the desertion by remaining coldly silent towards him, and every so often casting him reproachful glances, but Bingo's words had sent the plan from his mind. After all, Reggie had been the only one to follow him the first place. And they had been out of food.
Falco was not at all prepared to apologise, but he was feeling kind-hearted enough now to give a shaky smile and say: "It's nice to see you again, lads."
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