Page:Jean Webster--Much ado about Peter.djvu/127

Rh in kindergarten language and fired them straight into his face, they passed him by unscathed.

"Ye 're a coward, Tony," Peter repeated.

"Cow-ward?" Vittorio broke off his song and beamed upon them with a flash of black eyes and white teeth. "How you mean, cow-ward? No understand."

"A coward," Peter patiently explained, "is a man who's afraid to fight—like you. Eye-talians are cowards. They don't dare stand up man to man an' take what's comin' to 'em. When they 've got a grudge to pay, they creeps up in the night an' sticks a knife in yer back. That's bein' a coward."

The insulting significance of this escaped Vittorio, but he clung to the word delightedly. "Cow-ward, cow-ward," he repeated, to fix the syllables in his mind. "Nice word! Sank you." Then, as a glimmering of Peter's insinuation finally penetrated, he shook his head and laughed. The charge amused him.