st he came upon the
child sitting on Ammella's doorstep; he had wandered away and brought up
at the grocery; asked where he had been, the child pointed to the store.
Portoghese flew in and demanded to know what Ammella was doing with his
boy. The grocer was in a bad humor, and swore at him. There was an
altercation, and Ammella attacked the barber with a broom, beating him and
driving him away from his door. Black with anger, Portoghese ran to his
room and returned with a revolver. In the fight that followed he shot
Ammella through the head.

He was arrested and thrown into jail. In the hospital the grocer hovered
between life and death for many weeks. Portoghese lay in the Tombs
awaiting trial for more than a year, believing still that he was the
victim of a Black Hand conspiracy. When at last the trial came on, his
savings were all gone, and of the once prosperous and happy man only a
shadow was left. He sat in the court-room and listened in moody silence to
the witnesses who told how he had unjustly suspected and nearly murdered
his friend. He was speedily convicted, and the day of his sentence was
fixed for Christmas Eve. It was certain that it would go hard with him.
The Italians were too prone to shoot and stab, said the newspapers, and
the judges were showing no mercy.

The witnesses had told the truth, but there were some things they did not
know and that did not get into the evidence. The prisoner's wife was ill
from grief and want; their savings of years gone to lawyer's fees, they
were on the verge of starvation. The children were hungry. With the bells
ringing in the glad holiday, they were facing bitter homelessness in the
winter streets, for the rent was in arrears and the landlord would not
wait. And "Papa" away now for the second Christmas, and maybe for many yet
to come! Ten, the lawyer and jury had said: this was New York, not Italy.
In the Tombs the prisoner said it over to himself, bitterly. He had
thought only of defending his own.

So now he stood looking the judge and the jury in the face, yet hardly
seeing them. He saw only the prison gates opening for him, and the gray
walls shutting him out from his wife and little ones for--how many
Christmases was it? One, two, three--he fell to counting them over
mentally and did not hear when his lawyer whispered and nudged him with
his elbow. The clerk repeated his question, but he merely shook his head.
What should he have to say? Had he not said it to