Feeling that it was time for lunch, the boy hunted around a while for some restaurant that looked as though it would serve a meal that would not be too distasteful.  After a little search he found a small place that seemed to be just the thing.  The sign board was in Italian and the list of dishes pasted on the windows was in Italian, but Hamilton’s Spanish enabled him to make out what the phrases meant, and he went in.  At a table not far from the door, a man was sitting with his back to the entrance.  He did not hear the lad’s step until Hamilton was just behind him, then, with an Italian cry, he turned upon its face the paper on which he had been writing, and jumped to his feet so quickly that the chair on which he had been sitting overturned, and he stumbled as he stepped back a pace or two.  He glared threateningly at the boy, who apologized for startling him.  But it was evident that the man did not understand a word of English.

Hearing the clatter the proprietor came out from an inner room, and seeing the Italian standing there, broke into a passionate torrent of speech, all utterly unintelligible to Hamilton.

“I hava told heem,” he explained to the boy, “that I not wanta heem in this-a place at all.”

“I shouldn’t think you would,” said Hamilton, “I don’t like his looks.  Can I have some dinner?” he added, laying on the table a book he had just taken from his pocket, for the boy when alone always read at his meals.

“Certainly, sair,” and the proprietor rattled off a string of dishes from which the boy made a copious selection, for he was hungry.

But he noticed that the man who had been sitting at the table had not left the place but was furtively watching, a few steps away.  He was an ugly-looking customer, and Hamilton, full of grit as he was, felt uneasy.  Casting his eye down to where he had laid his book, he noticed the piece of paper sticking from beneath it, and noticed moreover, a heavy shadow as though there were a drawing on the other side.  His pulse beat a little faster as an idea came into his mind, but he showed no sign until the proprietor returned to set the table.

“I think,” he said, watching the stranger carefully as he spoke, “that gentleman left a paper behind him.  Ask him.”

The proprietor, looking much puzzled, put a question in Italian, to which was evidently returned a sharp denial.

Still watching him, Hamilton slowly reached out his hand for the paper which lay on the table, only half-hidden by the book, and turning it over laid it flat upon the white cloth.

It was the Black Hand.

[Illustration:  FESTA IN THE ITALIAN QUARTER.  Boys in Little Italy, New York, preparing for one of the many characteristic holidays. (Brown Bros.)]

CHAPTER X

RIOTS AROUND A CITY SCHOOL

There was a moment’s utter silence.  The bright little restaurant had suddenly become charged with mystery, the slinking stranger seemed to have become in a moment allied to secret powers of evil, and the whole atmosphere seemed baneful in the sinister significance of that drawing on the table.  A glance at the restaurant-keeper dispelled all question of complicity.  His jaw had fallen, his face was ashen, his lips bluish.