This offer was accepted with glee by the men and more especially by the women, who would have taken to heart the loss of a chance to honor their saint. And Michel Siniscalchi set to work to organize his festa. It was, by the way, part of the agreement, that the offerings placed in the saint’s shrine should go to help Siniscalchi.
Colored lights were strung in arches over the narrow street at frequent intervals, banners and yards of bunting draped the house windows, the confetti men and peddlers of fruit and sweetmeats came from blocks around, and on Saturday night the festa opened with much braying of music and no little religious devotion.
The most important decoration was the shrine of the saint’s picture. In a niche of the shrine the picture was placed, and rows of candles were set before it and the tasseled cloth of gold on which it rests. Then there were the plates and certain lithographic reproductions of the picture.
Since Saturday night the festa has held full sway. There is a preliminary celebration in the morning, and then everybody stops until two o’clock in the afternoon. For a brief spell around dinner time, every one but the band rests, and after dinner the people turn out to listen to the music and to gossip. It is a great occasion for gossip, the festa.
At present everybody is talking about the amount of money Michel Siniscalchi may lose by his speculations. The old men sit before the banca across the street from the shrine and[Pg 240] chuckle over his discomfiture, for, while yesterday and Saturday night the coins clinked in the dishes with merry rapidity, now they barely dribble, and, when a clink is heard, by its very novelty it strikes through all other noises.
“Caught,” they chuckle. “Yes, our Michel is caught this time. A cute one, he is. Yes, a cute one, Signor. No, not a politician. But cute, so cute. Ay, and this time he has been caught. Has the signor heard? The signor has but to cross the street and examine the blessed saint’s shrine. ’Tis bare, Signor. Nought but pennies.”
But there are others who are not so sure that Michel Siniscalchi is going to lose by his speculation. Among the younger generation of Italians his scheme is treated with considerable respect, and his Bowery friends wink when Michel’s intelligence is aspersed.
“Lose?” queried Jack Gallagher, sitting with a group of friends in the café behind the shrine. “Lose, did you say? Aw, g’wan. Say, Michel wasn’t born yesterday. He’s got his brains in his head. He’s too rapid for dese wops. Michel’s got a business eye, he has. He’s thinking of advertisin’. See that sign up there? See Michel’s name on it, good and big? See them lights? All from Michel’s store. Aw, he’s a wise guy. He knows his game.”
While Gallagher talked, the infrequent pennies, with an occasional nickel, dropped into the plates, and presently the figure was carried toward Spring Street, with at least 150 women and children and a band in the procession.
Simplicity and naturalness may be given to an explanatory article by putting it in the form of an interview with the person from whom the information is obtained; this was done in the following story from the New York Sun: