"Bring him along, Shorty," says the Boss, starting downstairs. "There's a hole in the sub-cellar that I want this old pirate to look through."
If that hole had been cut for an ash chute it was a dandy, for the muzzle of it was a mile more or less from anything solider'n air. We skewered Vincenzo's arms to the small of his back and let him down by the heels until he had a bird's-eye view of three counties. Then we pulled him up and tested his memory.
It worked all right. That upside-down movement had shook up his thought works. He was as anxious to testify as the front benchers at a Bowery mission on soup day. We loosened the cords a bit, set him where he could see the chute plain, and told him to blaze away.
Lucky the Boss knows Eye-talyun, for old Vincenzo couldn't separate himself from English fast enough. But they had me guessing what it was all about. I couldn't make out why the old chap had to use up all the dago words in the box just to tell who was the lady that had the private view. Once in a while the Boss would jab in a question, and then old Vincenzo would work his jaw all the faster. When it was all over the Boss looks at me as pleased as though he'd got money from home, and says:
"Shorty, how's your nerve?"
"Not much below par," says I. "Why?"
"Because," says he, "they're after us—brigands."
"Brigands!" says I. "Tut, tut! Don't tell me that this dead and alive country can show up anything like that."
"It can," says he. "The woods are full of 'em."
Then he gives me the framework of what old Vincenzo had been telling him. The prima donna girl, it seems, was a lady brigandess, daughter of the heavy villain that led the bunch. She'd come in to size us up and make an estimate as to what we'd fetch on a forced sale. They had spotted us from the time we registered and had been hangin' around outside laying for us to separate. Their game was to pinch one of us and do business with the other on a cash basis—wanted some one left who could go away and cash a check, you see. When we didn't show no disposition to take after dinner promenades or before breakfast rambles they ups and tell Vincenzo that they wants the run of the castle and promises to toast his toes if they don't get it.