e seemed to think.
They did make one rush toward the end of the afternoon, and several
people were wounded. One of our men was badly stabbed, but he got over
it. Watch now," he added, in a sharp voice. "There's something doing!"

The crowd hushed a moment, and a man's voice could be heard, but whether
pacifying the women or inflaming them, Hamilton could not make out. The
next moment answered him. Without any apparent preparation, the whole
face of the crowd suddenly seemed to burst, the end closed in, and in a
second one of the wildest hordes Hamilton had ever seen was at the
school gates. There was a brief struggle and nightsticks were drawn. The
crowd rolled back, then surged on, more angrily than before. But the
bluecoats stood firm, and when the crowd rolled back the second time a
number showed broken heads.

"Son," called the police lieutenant, "you scamper along, and tell the
principal to hurry up with letting out the school. I sent him one
message now this means business."

Hamilton turned and ran for all he was worth toward the building, but
just as he reached there, he saw the children marching in regular order
out of the rear door, and he came back immediately to report. As he did
so he found that the crowd was getting ready to make a third attempt to
attack the police, when, turning the corner, sauntering down the narrow
lane between the crowd and the police, came an Italian boy, about
fourteen years old, with half a dozen other ragged boys at his heels. On
seeing him, the lieutenant turned to Hamilton.

"That's Caesar," he said, with a sigh of relief. "I've known him for the
past year or two, and he'll settle all this trouble."

The boy looked at the police lieutenant with surprise. The police force
had had trouble enough, and what could a boy do? He voiced his query.

"His father's a 'Man of Silence,'" was the reply, "and Caesar himself
knows all there is to know. You'll see."

Arriving at the center of the crowd, just by the school gate, the boy
turned, and speaking to the nearest officer, said, in English, without a
trace of foreign accent, shrugging his shoulders:

"Some of them won't ever learn!"

For a moment he scanned the mob, called the names of two or three men on
the outskirts, and Hamilton could see them wince as this
fourteen-year-old lad named them; then he commenced a speech, which
seemed,--so far as Hamilton could tell--to be ridiculing them for their
fears.

The crowd relaxed, a