“Aah! in the inside pocket o’ me coat.” Joe flung an arm over his eyes. Jewel got up without haste. III From his place in the corner of the basement room Wilfred watched the other diners covertly. Had he but possessed a mantle of invisibility his happiness would have been complete. As it was, his pleasure in looking at people vanished when they looked at him. There were four places at a table, and he was most comfortable when all were taken. People sitting so close, never looked at you; and they made a sort of screen for you; moreover he was able to listen to their talk, and to build upon it. He ate his dinner in this place on West Tenth street once or twice a week; or as often as he could scare up the necessary thirty-five cents. He told his Aunts he had to work late at the office. How scandalized they would have been could they have seen him sitting there with a bottle of wine before him. They would never realize that he was grown. The place had no license of course, and you had a pleasant feeling of lawlessness; at any moment the police might come banging at the door. But they never had. A plain and friendly place, it supplied something that Wilfred had apprehended in novels of foreign life. He had got in the first time by attaching himself to the tail of a party at the door. Now he was known there and hailed by name. The generous minestrone, ravioli, etc., made his stomach purr. When he sat back and lighted a cigarette, life ceased to appall. It was run by a handsome Italian woman with a heavenly smile, named Ceccina. Her husband, Michele, held sway over the kitchen, which was revealed through an open door; and their three children Raymo, Alessandro and Enriqueta helped their mother to wait upon the tables. Simple people; Wilfred loved them from a distance, except the little girl, who was pert without being engaging. It was the fault of the fond patrons. Wilfred felt it his duty to discourage her. He had a specially warm spot for Alessandro the bullet-headed one, a blonde sport in that dark family. Alessandro, always watching for a chance to sneak out and play in the streets, was often in trouble with his father, who swore at him in English, without being aware of the comic effect of his aspersions on the boy’s parentage.