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By Root 750 0

like a young man brought up in Italy. His good manners, which were as natural as his pleasantness, made him always ready to help in the countless mild distresses of the poor: he would borrow a truck to help someone move to a new tenement, visit for a few moments when an elderly aunt was in Bellevue Hospital. But most important of all, he took part with a real zest in all the events of communal life—marriages, funerals, christenings, death watches, Communions and Confirmations; those sacred tribal customs sneered at by young Americans. The old women of Tenth Avenue gave him their highest praise; they said of him that he always knew which things were really important. In fact, he had been offered an honor that no Italian could remember being given to so young a man before. He was asked to stand godfather to the son of the Guargios, distant cousins. Lucia Santa forbade it. He was too young for such a responsibility; the honor would turn his head.

LARRY HEARD GINO screaming “Burn the city,” watched him run, saw the people disappear from the street into the tenements. He trotted his horse up the Avenue to the stable on 35th Street, then galloped, catching in his ears the rushing wind, the great clatter of hoofs on cobblestones. The stableman was asleep, so Larry took care of the horse and then he was free.

He went directly to the Le Cinglata home, a short block away on 36th Street. Signora Le Cinglata served the anisette and wine in her kitchen, charging by the glass and doling out her wit to the customers who drank the most. There were never more than five or six of these at a time; they were always Italian laborers, and bachelors or men whose wives had never joined them from Italy.

Mr. Le Cinglata was finishing up one of those thirty-day sentences that were a risk of his trade. “Ah, the police,” Signora Le Cinglata always said on these occasions. “They have put my husband on the cross.” She was religious.

When Larry entered the apartment there were only three men. One of them, a dark Sicilian, encouraged by the knowledge that her husband was in jail, badgered the signora, holding her skirt as she went by, singing suggestive Italian songs. There was in his actions only the innocent lechery, the childish malice, of a primitive man. Larry sat down at their table. He enjoyed a chat in Italian with older men. He returned the signora’s smile of welcome, and his ready assumption of equality offended the Sicilian.

Raising his great, heavy brows in mock astonishment, he shouted in Italian, “Signora Le Cinglata, do you serve children here? Must I drink my glass of wine with suckling infants?” The woman put down a cherry soda for Larry and the Sicilian gave all a look of excruciating slyness. “Oh, excuse me,” he said in a deferential, broken English. “Itsa your son? Youra nepha-ew? He protecta you when youra husband is ina his little hideout. Oh, excusa me.” He roared until he choked.

The signora, plump, handsome, and tough, was not amused. “Enough,” she said. “Cease or find another place to drink. And pray I do not tell my husband of your pretty behavior.”

The Sicilian said with abrupt seriousness, “Thank God if nobody tells your husband of your pretty behavior. Why don’t you try a man instead of a child?” And he struck his chest with both hands, like a singer at the opera.

Signora Le Cinglata, in no way shamed but out of patience, said curtly, “Lorenzo, throw him down the stairs.”

The phrase was extravagant and meant only that the man should be persuaded to leave, as they all knew. Larry started to say something conciliatory, a friendly smile on his face. But the Sicilian, his honor affronted, stood up and roared in broken English, “You little shitta American cockasickle. You throw me down the stairs? I eat you up whole anda whole.”

The man’s broad, bearded face was lined with authoritative rage. Larry felt a quick surge of childish terror, as if it would be parricidal to strike this man. The Sicilian loomed, and Larry threw a straight right into that huge dark face. The Sicilian fell to the kitchen floor. Suddenly Larry