"
"Why do you not ask your father to send you to school?"
"My father is in Italy."
"And his father, also?"
"Si, signore," answered Phil, relapsing into Italian.
"What do you think of that, Henry?" asked the gentleman. "How
should you like to leave me, and go to some Italian city to roam
about all day, playing on the violin?"
"I think I would rather go to school."
"I think you would."
"Are you often out so late, Filippo? I think that is the name
you gave me."
Phil shrugged his shoulders
"Always," he answered.
"At what time do you go home?"
"At eleven."
"It is too late for a boy of your age to sit up. Why do you not
go home sooner?"
"The padrone would beat me."
"Who is the padrone?"
"The man who brought me from Italy to America."
"Poor boys!" said the gentleman, compassionately. "Yours is a
hard life. I hope some time you will be in a better position."
Phil fixed his dark eyes upon the stranger, grateful for his
words of sympathy.
"Thank you," he said.
"Good-night," said the stranger, kindly.
"Good-night, signore."
An hour passed. The City Hall clock near by struck eleven. The
time had come for returning to their mercenary guardian.
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