It was growing toward noon when Hamilton finished the short list that
the Inspector had given him in that poorest section, and he was glad
when he was able to leave the pressure of the poverty behind him. His
next district was a section of the Italian quarter, and Hamilton knew
that while he would find poverty of a certain kind there, there was
enough of the community spirit among the Italians to prevent such
conditions as he had witnessed and enough frugality among them to enable
them to make the best of all they had.
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.
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