I had
nothing. I am nearly seventy, you know, and that was a young man. I
seemed even to recognize him. The moody young man of the cafe. The young
man I met in the crowd. But I could not tell. There are so many like him
in this country."

The distress of that moment was reflected in his face. I should think
that physically he must have been paralyzed by surprise. His thoughts,
however, remained extremely active. They ranged over every alarming
possibility. The idea of setting up a vigorous shouting for help
occurred to him, too. But he did nothing of the kind, and the reason why
he refrained gave me a good opinion of his mental self-possession. He
saw in a flash that nothing prevented the other from shouting, too.

"That young man might in an instant have thrown away his knife and
pretended I was the aggressor. Why not? He might have said I attacked
him. Why not? It was one incredible story against another! He might
have said anything--bring some dishonouring charge against me--what do
I know? By his dress he was no common robber. He seemed to belong to the
better classes. What could I say? He was an Italian--I am a foreigner.
Of course, I have my passport, and there is our consul--but to be
arrested, dragged at night to the police office like a criminal!"

He shuddered. It was in his character to shrink from scandal, much more
than from mere death. And certainly for many people this would have
always remained--considering certain peculiarities of Neapolitan
manners--a deucedly queer story. The Count was no fool. His belief in
the respectable placidity of life having received this rude shock, he
thought that now anything might happen. But also a notion came into his
head that this young man was perhaps merely an infuriated lunatic.

This was for me the first hint of his attitude towards this adventure.
In his exaggerated delicacy of sentiment he felt that nobody's
self-esteem need be affected by what a madman may choose to do to
one. It became apparent, however, that the Count was to be denied that
consolation. He enlarged upon the abominably savage way in which that
young man rolled his glistening eyes and gnashed his white teeth. The
band was going now through a slow movement of solemn braying by all the
trombones, with deliberately repeated bangs of the big drum.

"But what did you do?" I asked, greatly excited.

"Nothing," answered the Count. "I let my hands hang down very still. I
told him quietly I did not i