The owner of the Punchinellos stood expectantly awaiting the returns. Timidly the pale woman took him the empty hat. He scowled. Turning toward the dispersing crowd, he cried:
"What! You give me no money? Sons of dogs, I play no more to you"—this being a rebuke all Punchinello owners use.
No one seemed to care except Pappina and the woman. The latter shrank back from the showman's wrath.
The rowdies and hoodlums, observing his disappointment, remained. They were waiting to be called "figure of a pig," which to an Italian is a deadly insult and means trouble. They were hoping, longing for a fight, and it would have come but for Pappina.
She saw the brown–haired woman trembling at the rage of the disappointed man, and down she dug into her apron and passed a handful of soldi to the poor creature, who smiled her thanks.
Pappina sealed her fate by this act of generosity, for her beauty and grace attracted the swarthy Punchinello man's notice.
As Filippo led Pappina away, the owner of the puppet show muttered something to the pale–faced woman who had passed the hat, and thrusting the little stage toward her, darted off after the homeward–bound children.
Down the street they went, hunter and hunted, through the crowds, up highways and down byways, to the humble home in San Lucia.
"I have brought home the little runaway She was—" A knock at the door interrupted Filippo's speech.