"How true!"
"By the way," she chattered on, "what in the world have you done to Bernie? He has talked nothing but Mafia and murders and vendettas ever since he saw you the other day."
"He told you about meeting Donnelly in my office?"
"Yes! He's become tremendously interested in the Italian question all at once; he reads all the papers and he haunts the foreign quarter. He tells me we have a fearful condition of affairs here. Of course I don't know what he's talking about, but he's very much in earnest, and wants to help Mr. Donnelly do something or other—kill somebody, I judge."
"Really! I didn't suppose he cared for such things."
"Neither did I. But your story worked him all up. Of course, I read about you long ago, and that's how I knew you were a hero. When you returned from abroad I was simply smothered with excitement until I met you. The idea of your fighting with bandits, and all that! But tell me, did you discover that murderer creature?"
"Yes. We identified him."
"Oh-h!" The girl fairly wriggled with eagerness, and he had to smile at her as she leaned forward waiting for details. "Bernie said you asked him to go, but he was afraid. I—I wish you'd take me the next time. Fancy! What did he do? Was he a tall, dangerous-looking man? Did he grind his teeth at you?"
"No, no!" Norvin briefly explained the very ordinary happenings of his trip with the Chief of Police, to which she listened with her usual intensity of interest in the subject of the moment.
"You won't have to testify against him in those what-do-you-call-'em proceedings?" she asked as soon as he had finished.