should think, a dozen in Clerkenwell. They seem to centre about
the sounding viaducts that leap over Rosebery Avenue. Upon a time the
place had a reputation for lawlessness, but that is now gone, with most
of the colour of things. Occasionally there is an affray with knives,
but it is always among themselves: a sort of vendetta; and nobody
interferes so long as they refrain from bloodshed or from annoying
peaceable people. The services in the Italian Church are very
picturesque, and so, too, are their ceremonies at Christmas-time; while
the procession of the children at First Communion is a thing of beauty.
The little girls and boys walk together, the boys in black, the girls in
white, with white wreaths gleaming in their dark curls. At
Christmas-time there are great feasts, and every Italian baker and
restaurant-keeper stocks his trays with Panetonnes, a kind of small loaf
or bun, covered with sugar, which are distributed among the little ones
of the Church.

An old friend of mine, named Luigi, who once kept a tiny wine-shop,
lives in a little dirty room in Rosoman Street, and I sometimes spend an
evening with him. But not in summer. I adjure you--do not visit an
impoverished Italian who lives in one room in Clerkenwell, in the
summer; unless, of course, you are a sanitary inspector. He is an
entertaining old fellow, and speaks a delicious Italian-Cocknese, which
no amount of trickery could render on the printed page. When I go, I
usually take him a flask of Chianti and some Italian cigars, for which
he very nearly kisses me.

But Luigi has a story. You will see that at once if you scan his face.
There is something behind him--something he would like to forget. It
happened about ten years ago, and I witnessed it. Ten years ago, Luigi
did something--an act at once heroic, tragic, and idiotic. This was the
way of it.

It was an April night, and we were lounging at that corner which was
once called Poverty Point; the corner where Leather Lane crashes into
Clerkenwell Road, and where, of a summer night, gather the splendid
sons of Italy to discuss, to grin, to fight, and to invent new oaths. On
this corner, moreover, they pivot in times of danger, and, once they can
make the mazy circle of which it is the edge, safety from the pursuer is
theirs. The place was alive with evening gladness. In the half-darkness,
indolent groups lounged or strolled, filling their lungs with the
heavily garlicked air of the place.

Then a