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Major, you’re letting your heart run your head. Forget the bell and clean up the alleyway. This is too sentimental, this bell business.”
    The Major said to Zito in Italian: “Zito, exactly when was the bell taken away?”
    Zito said promptly, without having to think it over: “June the fourteenth. It was the day when Mayor Nasta fined me three thousand lira for leaving my Atlas open at the page of North America. I used to read my Atlas in dull hours outside the door there, and that day I left it open at North America. Like everyone else, Mayor Nasta knew the Americans were coming here. It made him nervous. He thought I was mocking him. He fined me six months’ pay.”
    The Major said: “June fourteenth, almost exactly a month.”
    Zito said: “It took them two days to take the bell down. They used six sets of block and tackle. Then it took another day to crate it. They started taking it down on the eleventh and finally carted it away on the fourteenth.”
    The Major said: “The fourteenth,” but he was thinking. He was thinking so hard that he had forgotten all about going to church.
    In the Church of Sant’ Angelo, meanwhile, Father Pensovecchio was growing frantic. Most of the heads in his crowd, his lovely crowd, kept turning toward the door instead of facing the silver crucifix which survived the fire of 1553.
    He could see that he was about to lose their attention altogether. They would all get up and go out in the streets looking for the Mister Major in a few minutes. There was nothing to do but begin.
    It was most irregular, but Father Pensovecchio knew that much was at stake for his Church, so he did not begin with the beginning of the mass, but instead began to recite the war litany, hoping in this way to kill time until the Major appeared.
    His voice began to drone: “Regina pads ora pro nobis...”
    In his office Major Joppolo was saying his thoughts out loud - in Italian, because he wanted to test them out on Zito: “We could get another. But we could not just get any bell. It would have to be a bell with meaning. Zito, what would you think if we got you a Liberty Bell?”
    Zito said: “What is this Liberty Bell?”
    Major Joppolo said: “It is the bell the Americans rang when they declared themselves free from the English.” Zito said: “The idea is good. But would America be willing to part with this bell for Adano?”
    Major Joppolo said: “We would have to get a replica, Zito. “
    Zito said: “Describe this bell.”
    Major Joppolo said: “Well, it hangs in a tower in Philadelphia, I think. It is of bronze, I think. It has a large crack near the bottom from its age. You can see it on postage stamps, and many companies use it for their trade mark.”
    Zito said: “How is the tone?”
    The Major said: “That would depend on the replica, Zito. We could get one with good tone, I think.”
    Zito said: “I do not like that about the crack. A bell should not crack just because it is old. Our bell was seven hundred years old, but it had no crack. I doubt if America is that old, to say nothing of your bell.”
    Major Joppolo said: “Perhaps it cracked because we rang it so hard to announce our liberty.”
    Zito said: “I do not think the people of Adano want any liberty that has a crack in it. No, they would not like that business of the crack. Maybe you could get us a Liberty Bell without a crack.”
    The Major said: “But without a crack it wouldn’t be a Liberty Bell. That is the way the real Liberty Bell is, Zito
    Zito said: “Then Adano will not want your Liberty Bell. Adano would not like to have a crack, I am sure.” Major Joppolo said: “Then that’s out.” And he thought some more.
    In this time Father Pensovecchio finished the war litany and looked nervously at the door, but the Mister Major still did not come. He beckoned to the senior acolyte and whispered in his ear. “Send out the little Ludovico and tell him to look for the American Major and bring him here. Do this for