The Culprit

I

THE postman came out of the cobbler’s shop on the morning of Columbus Day as Officer Harrigan was going in.

‘Fine weather for the parade,’the postman said.

‘Dago luck!’ growled Officer Harrigan. ‘Remember the hell-of-a-blizzard we had on the seventeenth of March?’

The postman’s answer was lost down the alley between the cobbler’s shop and the paper-box factory. There was a tenement in behind, where twelve Italian families, including the household of Angelo the cobbler, reproduced the atmosphere and sanitary conditions of certain quarters in Naples. The shanty shop, blocking the alley, toned in admirably with the local color.

Inside, Angelo and his pretty Giuseppina hung in perplexity over a long white envelope which the postman had left on the cobbler’s bench. At intervals they pawed it gingerly, turned it over, turned it back again.

‘Will I read it for yez?’ volunteered Officer Harrigan.

‘An-ge-lo Martini,’ said Angelo. ‘I read my name aw right, — but —’

‘W’at make a bird here?’ queried Giuseppina.

‘P-h-o-e-n-,’ murmured Angelo.

‘I-x,’ continued Officer Harrigan. ‘You been takin’ out fire insurance?’

Angelo fixed large, dazed eyes upon the policeman’s face: ‘Fire insure—? Yes.’

‘Well, this here’s it.’

Angelo’s eyes sought the envelope. ‘P-h-o-e-,’ he murmured again.

‘Feenix, you son of — Columbus,’ shouted Officer Harrigan. ‘ It’s a burrd they use for a trade-mark. Open it! ’

‘Oh, Angelo mio, you have buy me a bird?’ cried Giuseppina. ‘A bird to sing for me?’

‘A rroast turkey,’ Officer Harrigan explained genially, with a wink at Angelo. ‘That’s him a-roastin’ in them flames.’

Giuseppina clasped her hands: ‘For the festa! We eat him? W’ere iss he?’

Angelo had slit the long envelope, and a ray of intelligence slowly illumined his countenance. ‘No, carina; you no listen him; he jolly you. No turkey; no dicky bird; American eagle.’ He glanced at Officer Harrigan for confirmation and was rewarded by an amiable nod. ‘I make my shop insure by him, my ledther, my shoe, my new macchina for sew; everyt’ing safe by American eagle. “In God we trust.”’

Giuseppina’s innocent, bewildered eyes searched the insurance policy anxiously and then were lifted up to her husband with blank faithfulness. ‘“In God we trust,”’ she repeated.

Angelo had an inspiration. ‘Peppina mia! You know lottery, tombola, in Messina? — Ebbene; this American lottery. I pay for ticket; this — ticket; and if my shop burn up I win t’ree him’ doll’.’

‘T’ree hun’ doll’,’ repeated Giuseppina.

‘Mille cinque cento lire,’ Angelo translated.

‘Mille cinque cento lire!' gasped Giuseppina, suddenly alive to the situation. ‘When you burn him up? When you make fire? To-night? To-morrow morn’?’

The unrestrained mirth of Officer Harrigan shook the shop; but Angelo’s pleasant smile faded. He waited sullenly for the guffaws to cease.

‘You shut up your jolly,’ he said when he could be heard. ‘My wife no damfool.’

‘Sure, she ain’t,’ assented Officer Harrigan. ‘She’s a suffragette.’

‘You get out my shop.’ Angelo’s courteous voice had turned surly.

Giuseppina laid a timid hand on his arm.

‘Aw, come off, Angelo!’ said Officer Harrigan. ‘I’m handin’ ’er out compliments.’

Angelo had turned his back and was running a finger tentatively along the row of mended shoes on the shelf above his head. Giuseppina looked up at the big policeman with amiable reproach.

‘Why you laugh at me?’ she asked.

‘It’s an American joke, missis. You would n’t understand.’

Angelo had turned round with a pair of small, patched shoes in his hand. ‘Senta, Peppina, listen,’ he said; ‘ the one w’at buy the ticket, he no can burn up the shop. It ain’t the game. Non è permesso, is not permit. Anoder person have to burn up the shop. The one w’at buy the ticket no can burn up the shop. If I no play the game, I no get the mon’.’

‘No get the mon’,’ repeated Giuseppina.

‘Ain’t she the quick thinker!’ grinned Officer Harrigan.

‘She think aw right in Italian,’ Angelo flashed. ‘She in America now one year. You in Italy one year, you no speak, you no think, you no unnerstan’. You big damfool. Here your Mikey shoe; twen’ fi’ cen’.’

Officer Harrigan received his Mikey’s shoes with a rapid change of countenance. ‘Twenty-five cents!’ he ejaculated. ‘Since when?’

‘Since now to-day,’ growled Angelo.

‘And you think you can skin me like that, when you put half soles on Paddy’s shoes and never charged me nothing? You think that’s business? You can whistle for it.’

‘I mend your Mamie shoe,’ cried Angelo, ‘I mend your Tommy shoe, your Willie shoe, your Maggie shoe, your Mikey shoe, your Paddy shoe, your Jimmy shoe; how many chii’ren you got? I never charge you nothing. You laugh my wife; you jolly my Giuseppina. Now you pay. I gotta live. I gotta pay my fire insure. You pay me twen’ fi’ cen’.’

‘You damned ungrateful Guinea!’ yelled Officer Harrigan. ‘ I could a’ pinched you any Sunday this six weeks for keepin’ this shop open; an’ did I?’

‘You think you scare me for a joke,’ shrieked Angelo. ‘I keep American law. I am here t’ree year in this country. I no spit on the floor. I no carry stiletto,’ — he flung up his hands with a revealing gesture, — ‘I no shoot the dicky bird.’

‘Well, you leave this shop open next Sunday and see if it’s a joke,’ the big policeman threatened loudly. ‘You just try it on.’

‘Grrafter!’ screamed Angelo, who had taken out his first papers for citizenship. ‘Grrafter! How I can mend shoe for poor man if I no work Sunday? Workingman gotta wear shoe Monday, Tuesday, Friday, all days; bring him in Sunday for mend him. You pinch me, I tell the judge; I tell him I mend six, seven, nine pair shoe for you, an’ you did n’t pay me notting.’

Officer Harrigan laid three nickels and a dime in a little pile on the cobbler’s bench. ‘Grafter, am I?’ he said, quite softly, and with narrowed eyelids. ‘I’ll not forget that.’

Giuseppina went to the door and watched him stalk down the street. ‘O Angelo mio,’ she sighed, lapsing into her native dialect now that courtesy no longer demanded English, ‘why didst thou enrage him? If he was our friend he would perhaps burn up the shop for us. But now, who would venture to ask him!’

‘He is policeman,’ explained Angelo sharply. ‘It is not permitted to the policeman to burn the houses. And if I ask my friend to burn my shop, is it not as if I make that fire myself? No; I must not know who makes that fire. Neither police; neither nobody. Now, go thou and array thee for the festa. We shall see the Knights of Columbus make a procession upon the avenue. We shall take with us the bambini to hear la musica. Andiamo cara, come! If we have the good luck, we shall receive those mille cinque cento lire. If we have the bad luck, no.’

‘I shall light a candle to Madonna,’ said Giuseppina. ‘“In God we trust.’”

II

‘Where’s the karosene can, Aggie?’

Officer Harrigan was straying around his wife’s kitchen on the afternoon of Columbus Day, with a grimy lump of shoemaker’s wax in one hand and a dingy rag in the other.

‘It’s on the top shelf of the cupboard. Since that Maloney kid drunk half a pint I’m not takin’ any chances,’ said Mrs. Harrigan. ‘What do you want of karosene? What are you doin’ with that wax? Don’t you know no better than to use a dirty rag like that to take out spots? It ain’t karosene you want, it’s naphtha. Gimme that rag. Now where’s your spot?'

Mrs. Harrigan had returned from two hours of hope deferred on the Avenue, with smarting feet and an irritated impression that parades did not pay.

‘Aggie, I want that rag,’ complained Officer Harrigan meekly, — ‘and I’m due to report on my beat in ten minutes. Gimme.’

‘Where’s your spot?’ repeated Mrs. Harrigan, dabbing at imaginary blemishes on his tunic, and revolving him on his heels at a touch of her fingers.

‘Don’t be talkin’ like a sapolio ad,’ he fretted; ‘I tell you there ain’t no spot. It’s just a joke I’m pullin’ off on a Guinea that’s been givin’ me lip.’

Escaping from her ministrations, he took down the kerosene can from the shelf and poured a little on the rag and the wax.

‘If you put them dirty things in your pocket you’ll smell like a dyein’ and cleaner’s shop for a week,’ warned Aggie. ‘Who’s the Guinea?’

Officer Harrigan gazed uncertainly at the little wad in his hand and then closed his fingers upon it. ‘It’s that cobbler,’ he explained. ‘What do you think of him chargin’ me twenty-five cents for Mikey’s shoes?’

‘And all you’ve done for him!’ cried Aggie. ‘Ain’t that like these dirty ungrateful foreigners. What you goin’ to do?’

‘I’m goin’ to make him eat out of my hand, I am,’ said Officer Harrigan, extending his fist with the soaked rag clenched in it. ‘I’m goin’ to learn him to count ten before he calls me a grafter next time,’

‘Grafter!’ exclaimed Mrs. Harrigan.

But the door banged and her husband was off on his beat.

A half-hour later the fire-alarm rang, and she put her head out of the window to see the chemical engine go galloping around the corner.

‘Where’s the fire?’ she asked a running boy.

‘That dago’s shoe-shop, somebody told me,’ he called back over his shoulder.

Mrs. Harrigan put the window down and crossed the room to her rocking chair. After a minute or two she wiped her hand across her forehead and drew it away wet and cold. She sat a long time in her chair without moving.

Around the corner, in the courtyard behind Angelo’s shop, the firemen found Officer Harrigan dashing desultory pails of water into a heap of smouldering rubbish banked against the rear wall of the little shanty. An ancient Neapolitan sibyl tottered in his wake, rattling her knotty fingers and muttering supplications to the saints.

‘Ain’t it the devil!’ cried Officer Harrigan, sweating copiously. ‘An’ every soul of them off to the parade but this old lady. Play on the paperbox factory, boys, for the love o’ Mike! ’

The fire had already crept up the back wall of Angelo’s shop, to the roof, and little flames were licking the rotten shingles. A fireman knocked in the rickety door with an axe and the whole shanty quivered and leaned into the court.

‘Come on out o’ here, gran’ma,’ said Officer Harrigan, propelling the old woman hastily through the alley. ‘They’ll take charrge.’ He had a big bunch of half-burned rags in his hand, which he thrust under the nose of the chief fireman, standing out on the sidewalk. ‘Smell that,’ he said. ‘That’ll do for Angelo.’

‘Kerosene,’ nodded the fireman. ‘What makes you think he done it? May be one of them other dagoes had a grouch on him.’

‘He’s just took out insurance,’ remarked Officer Harrigan.

The other pursed his lips into a silent whistle and then remarked, ‘Say, ain’t these Guineas the limit for intellect!’

At this point the roof of the shop fell in and there was a shower of sparks.

‘Keep a lookout on the box factory, boys,’ shouted the Chief. ‘How’s it behind there in the tenement?’

Then a well-directed stream of water hit the little shanty and the four walls slithered together and collapsed.

The spectators on the other side of the street yelled.

‘She’ll do now,’ the Chief observed to Officer Harrigan. ‘But it might a’ been a damn ugly job, and I hope he gets the limit.’

‘He will, you bet, if my testimony counts for anything,’ the officer assured him. ‘Why, if I’d been five minutes later! —Dirty little fire-bug! — I’ll fix him!’

The drenching streams of water had rapidly reduced the little bonfire to cinders and a smell. The odor of burned leather exerted a dispersive effect, and by the time Angelo and Giuseppina came down the street, each carrying a sleepy and sticky bambino, the chemical engine was tooting its farewell and only Officer Harrigan and three or four of the returned inhabitants of the rear tenement were at hand.

‘ Jesu Maria!’ exclaimed Angelo, in his native tongue. ‘Has happened a miracle! Who would have believed it! What!’

He was immediately the centre of neighborly condolence and explanation. The old sibyl held out her arms for the bambini.

‘What’s he say?’ asked Officer Harrigan of a bystander.

‘He ver’ surprise.’

‘He is? Well, he’ll be worse surprised when I get through with him. What’s she say?’

Giuseppina at her husband’s elbow, silent at first, had now lifted her sweet eyes to his face, questioning, anxious.

‘Mille cinque cento lire ?’ she asked.

‘I think they gotta insurance,’ said the bystander. ‘I think they not lose nothing.’

Then Officer Harrigan, edging into the gesticulatory circle, laid a hand upon Angelo’s shoulder. Perhaps it was not strictly according to law, as this was a case for a warrant, but Angelo’s ignorance could be counted on. Angelo gaped.

‘Aw, don’t try none of your innocence dodges on me,’ said Officer Harrigan. ‘What was you in such a devil of a hurry for, anyhow? Could n’t you wait a week?’

‘Wait a week!’ cried Angelo. ‘I wait t’ree, six week. I mend you nine pair shoes. I get twen’ fi’ cen’ for nine pair shoes!’

‘Quit your bluffin’,’ growled the officer, yanking him abruptly out of the friendly circle. ‘Who’s talkin’ about shoes? Look a’ this!’ And he wiped the kerosene-soaked rags unceremoniously across the cobbler’s face.

Angelo choked, and struck out wildly with his free arm.

‘Come now, ain’t arson enough for you,you crazy fire-bug?’ said the policeman; ’are you goin’ to add assault and battery?’

‘Fire-bug!’ cried half a dozen astonished voices.

‘Fire-bug?’ screamed Angelo. ‘Firebug you! You set my shop on fire to make me troub’! You grafter! You — Amici, sentite! Friends, listen!’ And he had launched upon a lurid account of the morning’s quarrel, in a voluble Italian wholly unintelligible to his adversary.

In this way they started down the street, Angelo in the policeman’s grip, pouring forth invective, Giuseppina clinging to her husband’s sleeve and murmuring, ‘Cosa è? — What is it? — Che cosa ? — Cosa vuole ? — What does he want?’ — and behind them their neighbors and compatriots streaming.

‘You go home, missis,’ said Officer Harrigan to Giuseppina, not unkindly. ‘Somebody take her home. Go back to your kids, Mrs. Martini.’

‘What you make to my Angelo?’ asked Giuseppina. ‘He not owe you nothing.’

‘He say I make that fire,’ Angelo cried, turning upon her.

‘Ma che! ’ exclaimed Giuseppina. ‘My Angelo no make that fire, Mr. Policeman. If he know who make that fire, how he can get the mon’? He plays the tombola.’

‘ I know who make that fire,’ shouted Angelo. ‘He make it! He come my house and put dirty rag with kerosene behind my door! Now he say I make it!’

‘It is Madonna who make it,’ said Giuseppina soothingly. ‘I have light for her a candle. She bless my candle.’

Angelo turned a startled look upon his wife, studied her guileless face a moment in silence, and then addressed her in low, rapid Italian.

‘What’s he say?’ inquired Officer Harrigan, pausing en route and regarding his prisoner suspiciously.

‘He tell her to go home and shut her mouth,’ volunteered an interpreter. ‘He tell her good-bye.’

‘ He tell her you make the fire,’ added another maliciously. ‘Go home and say nothing. Soon he will come home. Not say nothing to nobody. Nothing, nothing. The wife must obey to her husband, he say. I not know what else he say.’

They had reached the station house, and Giuseppina, as at a command, lifted her face to Angelo’s and he kissed her cheeks.

‘Policeman make that fire,’ he said in English.

‘Policeman make that fire,’ she repeated obediently. ‘A rivederti, Angelo mio. Soon come home.’

‘ Subito! Subito! Soon! ’ he reassured her. And she turned back submissively to her children.

III

The young Harrigans had gone to bed when their father came off his beat on Columbus Day.

‘I was detained with the Martini rumpus,’ he explained as he laid aside his belt and coat and pushed up his shirtsleeves. ‘You heard about the fire?’

Mrs. Harrigan was setting out his supper on the kitchen table. ‘Paddy and Jimmy was there,’ she said briefly.

‘Did you hear he accused me of settin’ that fire? Me! Now what do you know about that!’ His voice resounded with honest self-righteous grievance.

Mrs. Harrigan paused between the stove and the table, her back to him. ‘Yes, I heard,’ she answered.

He had driven his knife and fork into the corned beef and was cutting off a thick slab. ‘If I had n’t acted prompt, pinchin’ him first, he could have made it hot for me, smellin’ of karosene and all. There was n’t no witness I could have called to prove the fire was burning when I went in the alley, except that old grandmother of the Minellis that’s wandering in her wits, I tell you, it pays to have a clean record. It pays to stand in with them higher up. I always said so. Arson! Me! The boys is guyin’ me somethin’ fierce.’ He laughed his loud, care-free laugh, and filled his mouth with corned beef.

His wife still halted with her back to him, between the stove and the table. When he laughed she wiped her hand across her forehead and on her apron.

‘Aggie, you forgot the salt-shaker,’ he said; and she roused herself to wait on him.

Later, when she was washing up, and he leaned back on two legs of the chair, picking his teeth, something — her unusual silence, or the weary droop of her shoulders — caught his attention, and his eyes followed her speculatively as she moved about the kitchen.

‘I’m kinder sorry for his wife,’ he remarked. ‘She begun sayin’ somethin’ on the way to the station, I could n’t catch, and he shut her up quick. Them dagoes sure have got their women where they want them. I wonder,’ he mused, ‘would you keep your mouth shut if you knew I’d set fire to a buildin’?’

Mrs. Harrigan was hanging the dishtowels on the rack above the stove. ‘ I have n’t never opened my mouth about that disorderly house on the next block, you don’t close up, have I?’ she asked quietly. Her husband’s eyes rounded with sudden astonishment. ‘Nor about old man Nolan’s tenement you don’t report to the Board o’ Health. Nor about —’

‘That house,’ expostulated Harrigan, — ‘you know well enough whose orders that is. I ’m holdin’ down my job, I am.’

‘Well, I have n’t opened my mouth about it,’ she repeated. ‘Have I? I don’t need a Guinea to show me how to keep my mouth shut.’

He stared at her in stupid silence while she wound the clock, but when she crossed the room to fasten the kitchen window, he got up and went after her and put his big, muscular policeman’s arm round her neck. ‘Say, old lady, I did n’t go to hurt your feelin’s that time,’ he protested. ‘Mad?’

She turned her face to his and shook her head, mute; and he kissed her quivering lips noisily. ‘All right, now?’

‘Jim,’ she said, her anxious eyes searching his, ‘you’ll go to confession Saturday night, won’t you?’

‘Confession!’ he cried. ‘What for?’

‘What for?’ she echoed blankly.

‘Confession!’ he reiterated. ‘When it’s two months yet to Christmas? Father Murphy’d throw a fit if he saw me comin’. What would I be confessin’, I’d like to know, in the middle of October?’

‘Well, if you ain’t the limit, Jim Harrigan,’ she gasped, pushing him away from her; and she began to cry; and then she began to laugh, and to cry again.

‘Good Lord, Aggie, you’ve got hysterics, do you know it?’ he exclaimed. ‘Be quiet now, will you! Drink some water; here! Do you want the neighbors to think I’m beatin’ you up? Aggie, you’ll wake the kids.’ She got herself in hand then, leaning against the sink and letting him mop her face with cold water.

‘Whatever made you jump the trolley like that?’ he queried. ‘You never done that before. What’s the matter with you to-night, anyhow?’

‘My feet hurt,’ she sobbed. ‘They hurt somethin’ fierce.’

IV

Subito, like most Italian adverbs of time, is a purely figurative expression. Months dragged by before Angelo’s case came up for trial. And as he could not find bail, and arson is a state’s prison offense, he spent the months in jail.

Characteristically, his compatriots, including the avvocato who was to defend him, believed him guilty. But to the Italian mind, so simple and so subtle, martyr and felon are not mutually exclusive terms, and it was manifestly the part of friendship to stress the martyrdom and ignore the felony. This was done with genuine, tender commiseration. But there was no one to go bail.

With Giuseppina they were all very patient, for about a week. ‘Angelo, che bravo marito — that good husband — is in jail! oh, for two, three days,’ they explained. ‘Because that suspicious fellow, the policeman, thinks he is such a fool he would burn down his own shop. His own shop, imagine! Perchè!’

And Giuseppina would reply, ‘Because that policeman he has a grouch on mio marito, gia! Angelo did not make that fire. Angelo speaks truth.’

And the consoler, if not too weary of the whole affair, would suggest, ‘And Angelo? He says the policeman has made the fire? Ebbene?’

To which Giuseppina would invariably retort, after a moment’s pause, ‘ My Angelo not know who make the fire. If he know, he will not have those mille cinque cento lire. He make a very good guess on that policeman?’ And she would smile watchfully.

No one, not even the avvocato, ever asked the direct question, ‘Do you know who made the fire, Peppina?’ But an occasional woman would hint, ‘You make a guess?’ And then Peppina always said, ‘ I have light a candle to Madonna. She have answer my prayer.’

When these iterations grew tiresome, the avvocato told Giuseppina that her talking might do Angelo harm, and only smiled and shrugged cynically at her frightened, ‘Dio mio, but it is Angelo who tell me to say that the policeman make the fire,’

The avvocato had early realized that the case would bring him neither money nor glory, and he did not show a proper appreciation of the gay basket of waxen and plaster-of-Paris fruits which Giuseppina brought him in the middle of the second month of Angelo’s incarceration. The avvocato, as he liked to remind his friends, was very much Americanizzato.

‘Why do I not receive those mille cinque cento lire?’ Peppina asked him. ‘The shop is burned down, and the leather, and the new macchina to sew; if they do not believe, let them come and see.’ And she wept when he told her that the money would not be paid until Angelo came out of jail; for had she not sold her cooking stove to buy the plaster-of-Paris fruits? And presently she had pawned her ear-rings and her flowered crêpe shawl and her American rocking-chair; but it was astonishing how very little coal and food one could procure with these beautiful objects, even when the Italian grocer allowed her to buy macaroni on credit.

‘Corraggio, Peppina!’ counseled the other women in the tenement. ‘One must be cheerful if one would nourish a child. Behold how your uninterrupted weeping gives the little one a perpetual stomach-ache. Tears poison the milk.’

Then one day, about a week before Christmas, Peppina, warming the baby at the little Italian furnace on which she now cooked what there was to cook, lifted her pretty head and listened. There was a strange footstep in the passage outside; it stopped at Peppina’s door; there was a fumbling knock, as if some one’s hands were full.

‘Avanti!’ said Peppina cordially.

But the visitor, it seemed, did not recognize the Italian for ‘Come in!’

There was a pause, and another fumbling knock, and Peppina with the baby in her arms and the little Angelina clinging to her skirts, opened the door and recoiled in a panic of terror; a quite unreasonable panic seemingly, for the visitor was only another woman with a baby on her arm and a little boy clinging to her skirts, a blowsy woman, all blue-eyed embarrassment and willow plumes.

‘Excuse me shakin’ hands, will you,’ she said. Her left hand steadied the baby, and she had a basket in her right. She came into the room with Peppina backing before her.

‘ You know me?’ whispered Peppina. ‘You maka mistake. You not know me.’

The visitor looked into those big, dark, frantic eyes, and her own shyness vanished.

‘ Say, you don’t need to be scared of me,’ she explained. ‘I ain’t an inspector nor a charity agent. I heard you did n’t have no — I heard you wanted to get work.’

‘Work?’ Peppina repeated. ‘I think you was mad on me, yes?’

‘You must be thinkin’ of somebody else,’ replied the blue-eyed woman. ‘What would I be mad with you for? I never spoke to you before in my life. I come to see if you wanted a job.’

‘Giobba!’ cried Peppina. ‘You give me a giobba ? You! Ah! — S’accomodi, signora, s’accomodi, taka sit!’

There was no chair, but Peppina waved her guest to the bed. ‘Sit, sit!’ she urged; ‘s’accomodi!’ Her sweet dark face was tremulous with amazement and gratitude.

‘Well, I will,’ said the benefactor, graciously. ‘This kid weighs eighteen pounds. You see, it’s like this: my mother, she’s an old lady, and we had a woman livin’ with her, but they did n’t get on. I don’t say it was the woman’s fault, and I don’t say it was n’t. I’m not agoin’ to talk against my own mother. My mother, — my mamma, — you know?’

‘Your mamma, old lady, yes?’ said Peppina.

‘But that woman, well, she got so she thought she owned the job, — you know?’ — Peppina did n’t know, but she nodded. ‘She thought I could n’t get nobody else to take it, because they all knows my mother, what she is. But I — I — been thinkin’ about you ever since — ever since, — I been wonderin’ — And yesterday I bounced the other woman.’

‘Bounce?’ queried Peppina.

‘Threw her out,’ explained the angel of mercy. ‘She went.’

‘Went,’ nodded Peppina.

‘Now, do you want the place?’ Peppina looked puzzled, but again nodded. ‘There ain’t no salary, only the tenement and the food. The other woman done odd jobs besides. You come — live — with — my — mamma? — Come?’

Peppina understood as by instinct. ‘The man, he put me in street nex’ week,’ she said. Her eyes were suddenly full of tears; and there were tears on the visitor’s large rough hand that Peppina had kissed.

The visitor regarded that large rough hand with open-mouthed astonishment and round eyes that also suddenly overflowed. For a little silent moment they sat side by side on the edge of the bed and looked at each other through their tears.

‘Now listen to me, dearie,’ the visitor began again presently. ‘I won’t conceal it from you, but the old lady has a fault. She’ll take a drop too much if you give her a chance. Poor dear, she’s had her troubles; I’m not the one to be blamin’ her. But she’ll bear watchin’. And the more you keep it from her, the better I’ll be pleased. A drop too much. Do you understand?’ The visitor quaffed an imaginary glass and shook her head reproachfully.

‘Too moch. Ah, poverina!’ said Peppina.

‘It’s why we can’t keep her with us, my husband bein’ a — on account of my husband’s business; and so many children as we’ve got. We could n’t stand for it. But he pays her rent.’

‘I like to be ver’ kind to your mamma,’ Peppina cried out with fervor. ‘Ver’ kind!’

‘You don’t need to be scared of her,’ the visitor continued. ‘It’s just noisy she is, and comical. Sure if she was n’t my own mother I’d die laughin’ some days. And when will you come — tomorrow ? ’

‘To-morrow,’ agreed Peppina.

‘And I’ll just be leavin’ this basket with you.’ The kind, florid face turned turkey-red with returning embarrassment. ‘I was bakin’ gingerbread this mornin’, my kids is so fond of it, and I thought — and there’s one or two other bits of things, I was thinkin’ — children is such little hogs for eatin’; now, ain’t they?’

‘O signora!’ Peppina cried. ‘How I am shame! I think you come my house to kill me, for why I say your husban’ make that fire. In Italia the wife will not make to her enemy like you have make to me. In America so different.’

The blue eyes popped with surprise. ‘And you was on to me, all the time? Sure, it’s Eyetalians is different, not us. If it was me was you, I’d never take nothing off Jim Harrigan’s wife, that her man put mine in jail; I know that for a fact.’

But this sentence, fortunately, was too complicated for Peppina; she only smiled and shook her head, and tried — this time without success — to kiss the large, rough, friendly hand.

‘Come, Mikey,’ said Mrs. Harrigan. ‘Come with mamma. Say good-bye to the little girl. Will you look at them two kids kiss good-bye! Mikey’s the masher, sure; ain’t you, Mikey?’

V

After those months of heartless delay, Angelo’s trial was a disconcertingly brief and unimportant affair — all over in an hour. There were no witnesses for the defense. The avvocato, in talking the case over with his client, had suggested calling Peppina to the stand, but Angelo had opposed the idea with an anxious vehemence for which he gave no adequate explanation, and the cynical lawyer was quick to take a hint. The prosecution called Officer Harrigan, and after he had given his testimony there was no question in any one’s mind as to what the verdict would be. Mrs. Harrigan, sitting with Peppina at the back of the courtroom, watched her husband take the oath, and listened to his story with her willow-plumed head thrust forward and great drops of sweat standing out on her forehead.

It was a very straight story. The avvocato could not trip him in it. The back wall of the shanty had already caught when he came into the alley. The fire might have been smouldering an hour in the rubbish pile. Officer Harrigan’s whereabouts during that hour and all preceding hours were satisfactorily accounted for. The Fire Chief testified that no one could have kindled a fire of such fury and dimensions in the three minutes which were also occupied by Officer Harrigan in entering the alley and dashing out again to give the alarm. There were half a dozen Italians who had been treated to a peep at Angelo’s fire-insurance policy. Yes; Officer Harrigan and Angelo had had a few words that morning over the price of mending a pair of shoes; Officer Harrigan had thought Angelo overcharged him, but he had paid the price.

Remained to prove the whereabouts of Angelo and Peppina during those damning hours preceding the fire. This the prosecution did satisfactorily by the half-dozen Italians who had gone forth from the alley with the Martinis to see the parade. They had all set out together at noon, but were separated in the crowd. At about two o’clock one of the neighbors had seen Peppina. She was coming out of the Church of San Giuseppe with a blessed candle in her hand. She was alone. Where was Angelo?

‘Non so,’ replied the witness.

‘He says he don’t know,’ explained the interpreter.

Immediately every one in the courtroom had leaped to the obvious conclusion as to the whereabouts of Angelo.

The judge gave him the limit.

The crowd, drifting down the room, cast curious glances at the two women sitting close together on a back seat. Peppina, unable to follow the evidence and unaware that doom had fallen, turned her kerchiefed head this way and that, like an uneasy little bird.

‘Where goes my Angelo?’ she whispered, nudging her neighbor.

But Mrs. Harrigan sat as if turned to stone, past seeing or hearing. The blue eyes were fixed in sombre thought, and something had wiped the smile from the kindly mouth.

One of the men who had taken Angelo out came back presently and spoke to Peppina.

‘Your husband wants to see you, Mrs. Martini,’ he said. ‘They’ve arranged to send him off by the early train to-morrow. He thinks you better say good-bye now.’

‘Good-bye?’ Peppina cried. ‘Che cosa? What is it? Aggie! Oh, somebody have put the evil eye on her. No good-bye! No!’

Mrs. Harrigan turned her face to the messenger, and the sweat broke out suddenly on her forehead and the backs of her hands.

‘They’re takin’ him off to state’s prison early to-morrow,’ the man murmured hurriedly. ‘You tell her.’

‘Listen, darlin’,’ explained Aggie. ‘He wants to say good-bye. Just for a little while it is. Don’t cry now, don’t you. Come then, Aggie’ll go with you if you’re scared.’

And when she had put the two frightened, babbling little creatures into each other’s arms, she waited within the door, wrapped in the pall of her heart-breaking thoughts. The Latin tears and cries, the raging torrent of Italian words, flowed round and over her, but she sat as one bespelled in the midst of a strange silence, all her grotesque ornaments emphasizing her tragedy. Once, a loud cry woke her for a moment, and Peppina had flung herself at Angelo’s feet and was pouring forth a wild, unintelligible prayer. Again, she heard her name, ‘Aggie!’ and when she looked, Angelo had clapped his hand over Peppina’s mouth.

‘She want to go state’s prison in my place,’ he explained. ‘Ain’t she love me, yes? But I tell her who will take care of those bambini? You kind woman, Mrs. Harrigan; you take my Peppina home.’

‘Oh, my God, Mr. Martini!’ Aggie cried. ‘You to call me a kind woman!’

‘Kind woman, yes,’ he repeated; and kissing Peppina, he pushed them both to the door.

In the Harrigan kitchen, when they had had a comforting hot drink of tea and were sitting drooped over by the stove, Aggie put out her hand suddenly, exclaiming, —

‘I have to open my mouth this much, if I die for it. Listen, dearie, you need n’t to think I think he done it. I know it was n’t him, for I know the one that did.’

‘You know?’ cried Peppina.

‘Yes, poor darlin’, don’t you be worryin’; I know.’

‘Oh, how you know?’ Peppina marveled. ‘You see me make that fire? You see me? W’ere was you?’

‘Seen you make that fire?’ Aggie fell back in her chair. ‘Whatever are you sayin’?’

‘Ah, you hear me tell my Angelo I make that fire, yes! He think, but he not know. I tell him yes, I make it. You un’nerstan’ Italian, I am glad.’ Peppina beamed her relief.

‘Peppina,’ Aggie’s voice was very carefully gentle. ‘Did you set fire to your shop?’

‘Sure!’

Into the stillness that followed this announcement, Officer Harrigan’s loud boots came tramping cheerfully, and at sight of him his wife leaped from her chair.

‘Jim! Jim!’ she cried. ‘It was n’t you set the shop afire! It was n’t you! ’

‘Tell me somethin’ I did n’t know,’ he retorted. ‘Say, Aggie, are you crazy ?’

‘It’s her,’ was the lucid reply. ‘She done it.’

‘Done what?’

‘Fired that shanty.’

‘ Lord! ’ Officer Harrigan gaped at Peppina.

‘We go to the parade,’ she explained, ‘yes. Ebbene, I say to Angelo I go to make a prayer in San Giuseppi, and I go in San Giuseppi, and Angelo he have the bambini on the avenue. And I buy candle, beata, — holy— and I will light to Madonna by my — how you call? — my leetle Madonna in my house. Also, I put kerosene, a leetle; and my candle is light and I make — so — in that dump in the alley,’

Officer Harrigan regarded the incendiary with something very like admiration. ‘Well, she sure had us fooled, now did n’t she?’ he said to his wife; and then the broad grin faded from his face. ‘God! Aggie!’ he cried. ‘You thought it was me!’

‘And why would n’t I?’ she asked him, quietly. ‘You goin’ out of here with a rag soaked in karosene.’

‘I was goin’ to scare him,’ he stammered. ‘I was goin’ to light it under the garbage and bring him to it and tell him I knew he done it.’

‘And where’s the difference?’

‘The difference! When I’d stamp it out under my foot and no harm done? ’

‘I can’t see no difference.’

He stared at her helplessly. ‘You mean you think I’d go to set fire to a house? Why, that’s bein’ a criminal, Aggie. That’s arson.’

‘You don’t report old man Nolan to the Board of Health; and there’s that bad house up street; and you did n’t run in the barkeeper to the corner saloon that time — ’

‘Will you shut your mouth!’ he threatened. ‘Tellin’ all you know right out in front of this Guinea. I wonder you’re willin’ to live with me, the way you talk.’

‘Oh, Jim,’ she said gently, ‘for two hours I been thinkin’ you was lettin’ another man go to state’s prison in your place.’

She covered her face with her hands, and stood silent in the middle of the kitchen. It seemed a long time that she stood there with her face hidden.

When he spoke, his bluster had died out and his voice was husky. ‘I wonder if I would ? ’ he said. And presently, ‘Nor he never done it, neither. Would n’t that jar you! But the boys’ll be glad to make up a purse for the kids; I can do that much.’

‘You’ll do more,’ said Aggie, lifting her head with returning energy. ‘You ’ll go to the Governor for a pardon, that’s what you’ll do. You can tell him the truth of it for once, and if he don’t believe you, take Peppina along. Now get busy.’

‘I will that,’ Harrigan cried. ‘I’ll begin to pull the wires to-morrow. Sure, Mrs. Martini, we’ll have Angelo out inside of six months.’

‘And those insurance?’ asked Peppina. ‘Those t’ree hun’ doll’?’

With uplifted eye and arm and voice, Officer Harrigan apostrophized the ceiling. ‘Say, how you goin’ to make a woman understand? — I give it up.’