"I cannot think why I could not find you when the fireworks were over."
"It was the crowd. I thought it best to go to the stable without searching for you. I knew you and Salvatore would be there."
The boy was silent for a moment. Then he said:
"Salvatore was very angry when he saw me come into the stable without you."
"Why?"
"He said I ought not to have left my padrone."
"And what did you say?"
"I told him I would not be spoken to by him. If you had not come in just then I think there would have been a baruffa. Salvatore is a bad man, and always ready with his knife. And he had been drinking."
"He was quiet enough coming home."
"I do not like his being so quiet."