> Can anyone explain the discrepancy? (I usually run M-x gnus in the
> *scratch* buffer, as it happens, though I doubt that’s relevant.)

Lived with this behavior for ages, asked a question about it, five
minutes later noticed for the first that the behavior is *in fact*
dependent on where the cursor is in the *Groups* buffer. So this is
definitely helm-find-files trying to be clever in some way.

Ignore me.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | What is written without effort is in
http://nwalsh.com/            | general read without pleasure.--Samuel
                              | Johnson