THE NINTH MAN
"And what will you do with it, Julio? And what doth thy father say?"
"Hist!" said he. "My father does not know, nor my mother. I shall kill my master with it, and then I shall be free. Moreover, those children who now use their ballots as their fathers and mothers say are fools, for they must undoubtedly some day work and be bound over as apprentices, and they had better kill their masters."
There being no more bread, and the noon hour being past, the children ran away, all but the little blond girl, who had remained pressed close to Brother Agnello's side. And now when they were all gone she lifted the skirt of her pinafore and groped in her pocket, bringing from it a ballot which she mutely showed to him; and he, feeling in his scrip brought out its fellow, and the two smiled at each other like children who compare their marbles.
"No one knows," she whispered.
"She lives with her grandmother," Brother Agnello then said to me, "and the old dame is deaf and blind and the little maid too shy to talk to any."
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