Phil, the Fiddler

“Yes, sir.”

“How would you like that, Henry?” asked his father to the boy at his side.

“I should like to play about the streets all day,” said Henry, roguishly, misinterpreting the word “play.”

“I think you would get tired of it. What is your name, my boy?”

“Filippo.”

“And what is the name of your friend?”

“Giacomo.”

“Did you never go to school?”

Phil shook his head.

“Would you like to go?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You would like it better than wandering about the streets all day?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why do you not ask your father to send you to school?”

“My father is in Italy.”

“And his father, also?”

“Si, signore,” answered Phil, relapsing into Italian.

“What do you think of that, Henry?” asked the gentleman. “How should you like to leave me, and go to some Italian city to roam about all day, playing on the violin?”

“I think I would rather go to school.”

“I think you would.”

“Are you often out so late, Filippo? I think that is the name you gave me.”

Phil shrugged his shoulders

“Always,” he answered.

“At what time do you go home?”

“At eleven.”

“It is too late for a boy of your age to sit up. Why do you not go home sooner?”

“The padrone would beat me.”

“Who is the padrone?”

“The man who brought me from Italy to America.”

“Poor boys!” said the gentleman, compassionately. “Yours is a hard life. I hope some time you will be in a better position.”

Phil fixed his dark eyes upon the stranger, grateful for his words of sympathy.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Good-night,” said the stranger, kindly.

“Good-night, signore.”

An hour passed. The City Hall clock near by struck eleven. The time had come for returning to their mercenary guardian. Phil shook the sleeping form of Giacomo. The little boy stirred in his sleep, and murmured, “Madre.” He had been dreaming of his mother and his far-off Italian home. He woke to the harsh realities of life, four thousand miles away from that mother and home.

“Have I slept, Filippo?” he asked, rubbing his eyes, and looking about him in momentary bewilderment.

“Yes, Giacomo. You have slept for two hours and more. It is eleven o’clock.”

“Then we must go back.”

“Yes; take your violin, and we will go.”

They passed out into the cold street, which seemed yet colder by contrast with the warm hotel they just left, and, crossing to the sidewalk that skirts the park, walked up Centre street.

Giacomo was seized with a fit of trembling. His teeth chattered with the cold. A fever was approaching, although neither he nor his companion knew it.

“Are you cold, Giacomo?” asked Phil, noticing how he trembled.

“I am very cold. I feel sick, Filippo.”

“You will feel better to-morrow,” said Phil; but the thought of the beating which his little comrade was sure to receive saddened him more than the prospect of being treated in the same way himself.

They kept on their way, past the Tombs with its gloomy entrance, through the ill-lighted street, scarcely noticed by the policeman whom they passed—for he was accustomed to see boys of their class out late at night—until at last they reached the dwelling of the padrone, who was waiting their arrival with the eagerness of a brutal nature, impatient to inflict pain.

CHAPTER XI

THE BOYS RECEPTION

Phil and Giacomo entered the lodging-house, wholly unconscious of the threatening storm, The padrone scowled at them as they entered but that was nothing unusual. Had he greeted them kindly, they would have had reason to be surprised.

“Well,” he said, harshly, “how much do you bring?”

The boys produced two dollars and a half which he pocketed.