"Come!" cried Danilo, roughly. "It will not do for you to trifle with me. You set your price. Here is the money. I want that cap!"
The youth turned pale and attempted to run. Danilo grasped him firmly by the shoulder.
"Give me that cap!" insisted Danilo.
The youth obeyed, trembling from head to foot. One or two passers-by halted, stared a moment, and passed on, shrugging their shoulders indifferently.
"Thank you," said Danilo. "You have done me a great favor. Here is the two dollars. May God reward you." As he said this he made the sign of the cross in midair above the boy's head. The boy cowered and began to whimper. Danilo put on the cap and walked away.
He felt more at ease now; no one was paying the slightest attention to him. He decided to go into a saloon and buy something to drink. The bartender, stout and genial and Irish, passed him the bottle of whisky. Danilo's hand shook as he poured out his drink. The Irishman eyed him quizzically.
"I have just had an unpleasant experience," Danilo began, apologetically, as he spilled some of the whisky. "I saw a woman shot." The barkeeper seemed unimpressed. Danilo felt annoyed. "At the St. Francis Hotel ... in the dressing-room, off the Colonial Ballroom.... She had been fooling a man. I was so excited I walked out of the hotel without my hat.... This cap—I bought it from a boy on the street. Is it not droll?"
The Irishman put the cork in the whisky-bottle and set it in its place under the bar.
"The man was a fool!" he said, bluntly. "I'd like to see myself take a chance at swinging for the likes of any woman."
"Oh, you are mistaken!" Danilo returned, mildly. "The man who shot this woman will not swing."