allied forth.

By means of the tortuous twists of streets in old Greenwich village
we came out at last on Bleecker Street and began walking east amid
the hurly-burly of races of lower New York. We had not quite reached
Mulberry Street when our attention was attracted by a large crowd on
one of the busy corners, held back by a cordon of police who were
endeavouring to keep the people moving with that burly good nature
which the six-foot Irish policeman displays toward the five-foot
burden-bearers of southern and eastern Europe who throng New York.

Apparently, we saw, as we edged up into the front of the crowd, here was
a building whose whole front had literally been torn off and wrecked.
The thick plate-glass of the windows was smashed to a mass of greenish
splinters on the sidewalk, while the windows of the upper floors and
for several houses down the block in either street were likewise broken.
Some thick iron bars which had formerly protected the windows were now
bent and twisted. A huge hole yawned in the floor inside the doorway,
and peering in we could see the desks and chairs a tangled mass of
kindling.

"What's the matter?" I inquired of an officer near me, displaying my
reporter's fire-line badge, more for its moral effect than in the hope
of getting any real information in these days of enforced silence toward
the press.

"Black Hand bomb," was the laconic reply.

"Whew!" I whistled. "Anyone hurt?"

"They don't usually kill anyone, do they?" asked the officer by way of
reply to test my acquaintance with such things.

"No," I admitted. "They destroy more property than lives. But did they
get anyone this time? This must have been a thoroughly overloaded bomb,
I should judge by the looks of things."

"Came pretty close to it. The bank hadn't any more than opened when,
bang! went this gaspipe-and-dynamite thing. Crowd collected before the
smoke had fairly cleared. Man who owns the bank was hurt, but not badly.
Now come, beat it down to headquarters if you want to find out any
more.--You'll find it printed on the pink slips--the 'squeal book'--by
this time. 'Gainst the rules for me to talk," he added with a
good-natured grin, then to the crowd: "G'wan, now. You're blockin'
traffic. Keep movin'."

I turned to Craig and Luigi. Their eyes were riveted on the big gilt
sign, half broken, and all askew overhead. It read:

CIRO DI CESARE & Co. BANKERS

NEW YORK, GENOA, NAPLES, ROME, PALERMO

"Th