The other saw his advantage in the terror the mere display had excited, and stepping forward, he reached out his hand to pick up the paper, saying in English: 

“Mine!”

Before the Italian had time to grasp the sketch, Hamilton quietly took it and folded it in half.

“I wouldn’t be so ready to claim it, if I were you,” he said, knowing that the other might not understand the words but could tell the tone.

“What are you going to do?” queried the restaurant-keeper in a hoarse whisper.  “They will kill-a me!”

Hamilton thought hard for a moment or two.  In the first place the matter had nothing to do with the Census Bureau, and the boy felt that while he was on duty in that work and wearing the census badge he was not a private citizen.  Again, it was not a crime to draw a hand on a piece of paper, and the space obviously left for the blackmail message had not been filled in, and thirdly he could not swear that he saw him draw the hand; he only saw the paper in the man’s possession.

“Tell him,” he said to the restaurant-keeper, “that I shall say nothing about it, that I am not a policeman, nor a spy; tell him that so far as I am concerned I do not know that he had anything to do with it, and return him the paper.”

And bending forward, he reached out the paper to the Italian, who first snatched it eagerly, and then, having secured it, made a ceremonious bow.  The proprietor of the restaurant translated the boy’s words, and with a brief reply, which Hamilton rightly construed to be thanks, the stranger left the store.  No sooner was he gone than the restaurateur, with a word of apology, sank into the nearest chair, fairly exhausted with fright.

“I tell you, sair,” he said, as soon as he could get his breath, “I had-a nothing at all to do with that-a man.”

“It’s pretty hard to know about these things,” said Hamilton, who was somewhat unnerved himself, “but I don’t believe you had.  Anyway, there’s no harm done.  I’ve always heard about the Black Hand society, but I didn’t expect to run across it first thing, that way.”

“There is no Black-a Hand society,” the Italian said, “at least I do not think there is.”

“How do you mean there’s no Black Hand?” asked Hamilton a little indignantly, “haven’t I just seen it?”

The Italian shook his head.

“What were you so scared about, then?” queried the boy impatiently.

“Mafia,” said the other, his lips just shaping the syllables.

“You mean that the Mafia use the Black Hand?”

The Italian nodded.

“And that it is the sign of the Mafia?”

“No,” said the restaurant proprietor.  “It is this-a way.  When the Mafia was all-a broken up in-a the Sicily, the chiefs come to America.  But the people are so far away it is difficult-a to speak-a to them all.  One day one of the Mafia leaders write a letter threatening to kill.  His—­what you call it—­nickname was ’Il Mano Nera’—­”