In April, 1921, when Adolfo was discharged from the hospital with his leg partly restored but with his face still in need of skin grafting and other treatments, Salvatore Varotta decided to buy a cheap, second-hand automobile. He could make money with it and also use it to give his family an airing once in a while. The car, for which only one hundred and fifty dollars had been paid, attracted the attention of the East Thirteenth Street neighbors again. What? Salvatore had bought an automobile? Then there must have been a settlement in the damage suit over little Adolfo’s injuries. Salvatore had money, then. So, so! One of the neighbor women happened to pass when the rickety car was standing at the curb, and Mrs. Varotta was on the stoop, her youngest child in her arms. “Ha! Salvatore can’t have much money when he buys you a hundred-and-fifty-dollar car,” mocked the woman. “He could have bought a thousand-dollar one if he wanted to,” said the wife with a surge of false pride. That was enough. That was confirmation. The damage suit had been settled. Salvatore Varotta had the money. He could have bought an expensive car, but he had spent only a hundred and fifty. The niggardly old rascal! He meant to hold on to his wealth, eh? So the word fled up and down the street, to the amusement of some and the closer interest of others. As a matter of fact, the damage suit had not been settled. It was even doubtful whether Salvatore would ever get a cent for all his son’s injuries and suffering. The man whose car had collided with Salvatore’s had no means and could not be made to give what he did not possess. So it was an entirely false rumor of prosperity and a word of bragging from a sensitive wife that brought about many things. At about two o’clock on the afternoon of May 24, 1921, Giuseppe Varotta, five years old, the younger brother of the wounded Adolfo, put on his clean sailor suit and his new shoes and went out into East Thirteenth Street to wait for the homecoming of his father and the automobile. Giuseppe, familiarly called Joe, did not know or care whether the car had cost a hundred or a thousand dollars. It was a car, it belonged to his father, and Joe intended to have a ride in it. For some minutes Joe played about the doorstep. Then his childish patience forsook him, and he ran down the block to spend a penny which a passer-by had given him. Other children playing in the street observed him by the doorstep, saw him get the penny, and watched him go down the walk to the confectioner’s. They did not mark his further progress. At half past three, Salvatore Varotta came home in his car. He ran up the steps into the house to his wife. She greeted him and asked immediately: “Where’s Joe?” Varotta had not seen his little son. No doubt he was playing in the street and would be in soon.