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.
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.