IVThe next day, early in the afternoon, Aleko duly took theEmbrosto the little street off the Kolonaki Square, where the old, blind schoolmaster sat waiting for him, just inside his door. The boy sat down on the doorstep and read out all the news to him. Then he told him all about his boxing lesson, and left only when it was time for the evening newspapers to come out. And after that, the afternoon readings became a regular thing. Sometimes the boy was tired after the long, hot, hard-working morning, and would have willingly thrown himself down on his mattress for an hour or two, but he never failed the old man.Of course the readings were frequently interrupted by questions, for Aleko soon discovered that Kyr Themistocli was of those who “knew things when you asked them.”“What is an ‘agonistes’?” he asked one day, after reading of the death of an old veteran.“An ‘agonistes’ is one who fights; but now it has come to mean one who has fought in the Revolution of 1821. My father was one.”The newspaper fluttered down on the doorstep and Aleko was on his knees beside the old man, his eyes eagerly fixed on the sightless ones above him.“Your father! Did he kill Turks himself? Did he blow up a Turkish ship? Did he come down from Souli7with Marcos Botzaris? Did he see Kanaris and Miaoulis? Did he fight at Missolonghi? Was he there when the Turks passed the stake through Diakos?”8“Stop, stop, my child! you want the whole of the Revolution at once!”However, he was very patient, the old man, and Aleko heard many of those things which never get into the history books, at least into those from which he read at school. Little incidents of the many battles and sieges, tales of the misery and the hardships, and of the braving of all the misery and the hardships, for the sake of freedom. Of the Christian children who were stolen and turned into infidels! Of the boys who were taken as babes and brought up to hate and to fight againsttheir own people; of the girls who were made slaves in the harems; of the bloodshed, and the tortures, until at last the day came at Navarino when even strangers joined in arms against the cruel oppressors.“I am afraid,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that you cannot quite understand yet, how it all came to pass.”“There is only one thing I cannot understand,” said Aleko slowly.“What thing?”“When they had the strangers to help them, why they did not go everywhere, and cut offallthe Turks’ heads so that none should be left.”The old man leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.“He is terrible, the little one!” and he tried to explain, but Aleko remained rather unsatisfied on this point.“Now, will you find me some water to drink. I have talked much.”Aleko found the water, and was just putting the pitcher back in its place, when he heard a series of short sharp barks in the distance. Instead of passing out of the house door, beforewhich the old man was sitting, he vaulted out of the low kitchen window and went tearing down the street.“Aleko!” called Kyr Themistocli who heard the clatter. “Aleko! Where are you?” But there was only silence. He sighed and leaned back in his chair crossing his hands.“Of course the boy cannot stay long; it is well he comes at all,” and he sighed again.Suddenly he felt something warm, and soft, and alive on his hands. He was startled.“What is it?”“It is only Solon,” said Aleko. “Did you not hear me return? He was barking down the street and I knew he had strayed again from the cook—Anneza—and I brought him for you to see.”Kyr Themistocli always talked of “seeing” and Aleko had got into the same habit.“Put your hands over him,—so,—Is he not soft? And clever! as clever as a Christian! Whatever I tell him he understands.”Kyr Themistocli smiled.“He is not yours?”“Mine! No! He belongs to the big house higher up, the one which has the garden. Doyou know it? Someone lives there who is called ‘Spinotti.’ ”“Kyrios Spinotti, the banker; he is a very rich man.”“Is he?” said Aleko indifferently. “Well, Solon is his dog, and he is so fond of him that he fears lest the wind should blow or the rain should drop on his body; and he often goes into the kitchen to see what he eats, and Anneza says that if all poor people fared as well as this dog does, it would be well. So that is why he is so fat, you see! And when Anneza goes out, her master says she must take the dog with her for exercise, and if she does not … bad luck to her! But he is always straying. She is a stupid woman and Solon will not stay with her. Some day she will lose him and never find him again, and then there will be trouble. Now I must take him back.”“His master,” said the old man slowly, “is so fond of the dog because it was his wife’s dog, and she is dead.”Aleko, with Solon contentedly tucked under his arm, stopped short.“You know him then?”“This house in which I live, is his, and because of that, I pay very little rent for it. He, Nico Spinotti, is my old pupil from Cephalonia, of whom I told you; he who took me to the oculists. Once, a long time ago, when I first came to Athens, when I could still see, I went to his house. His wife was alive then—a beautiful woman, of one of the first names of the island—and as she was talking to me and smiling, she had the little dog, who was but a puppy, in her arms. She died—God rest her soul—of typhoid fever. Since then I have not seen Nico often, but he never forgets his old master.”“Of course not,” said Aleko, “why should he?”“Many would, my boy; many would. But he is a good man; take his dog back to him that he may not be anxious.”After Aleko had left Solon at the big house, it was already dark. He hurried down the Kiphissia Road and through the Square of the Constitution, thinking he would have more chance of selling the few papers he still held, if he went to school by that way.It was getting cooler, and the streets werefilled with people pouring out of all quarters of the city to breathe the night air after the weariness of the day spent behind closed shutters.Crowded street cars and carriages crossed and recrossed, carrying family parties down to Phalerum and the sea.The little round tables at Yannaki’s, Doree’s, and Zacharato’s were all occupied, in fact those of the latter had spread right out across the square. All around rose the hum of summer night noises, of music, of the cries of the café waiters, the tinkling of many glasses and spoons, and the distant whistle of the Kiphissia train.Groups of men lounged past, talking and laughing.A man in one of the groups beckoned to Aleko, a young man with a small dark moustache:—“Here! Have you any newspapers left?”Aleko looked up into the pleasant, laughing eyes of his boxing master.“Oristé!”9he cried eagerly. “Certainly, all you want.”“Ah, is it you, Aleko! Good evening to you!Well, give me theHestia, theAstrapi, theHesperini—and theRomios, if you have it.”Then, when he had gathered them up, he asked laughingly:—“Now, as we are old friends and I have bought so many newspapers, surely you will take off a discount for me! What shall I give you?”Aleko, being of pure Greek blood, answered in the good old Greek fashion:—“Whatever you please to give.”The young man laughed and held out a five lepta copper coin, the value of one newspaper alone.“Suppose then I please to give only this.”Not a muscle moved in Aleko’s face.“You shall give it,” he answered, then taking the coin he dropped it into his pocket, and was turning away, when the young man called him back.“Here! Stop! Did you take it seriously?” and while he was searching for more coins, he asked, “Do you boys not have to account for all the papers you sell?”“Of course; the ‘big one’ keeps count of everything.”“Well then, what would you have said when the ‘big one’ as you call him, found fifteen lepta too little?”“He would have found his money right.”“How could he?”“I would have put it there from my supper money.”The young man looked at Aleko rather curiously, and two of the other men who were with him laughed. The one of them, an older man, said:—“This is an original little specimen!” and the other, an officer, asked:—“And why should you be taking from your supper money to make this gentleman a present of three newspapers? Do you not think he is richer than you?”“That does not matter at all,” answered Aleko. “My father told me that it is a shame always to take, and never to give, however poor you are. He …” pointing with his thumb backwards, “has given me much; may I not befriend him with three newspapers?”“Ah, that of course alters the question,” remarked the officer.“I assure you,” began the young man, “thatI have never given the child a single thing!” Then turning to Aleko, “Are you thinking of the ‘tsourekia’10and red eggs at Easter? but that was from all the members of the Parnassos, not from me alone.”“No,” said Aleko, “I mean that you have taught me many things, and that is more than things which are eaten andfinished.”“Oh, ho!” laughed the officer, “this is a philosopher we have here.”“No,” said Aleko gravely, “I have not enough learning; perhaps if I could go to school all day, I might be one, some time.”The older man shook his head.“That is the way of the world.Myson can go to school all day, and every day, and his one object is to stay away.”“What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the officer of Aleko.“I do not know … yet,” he answered slowly. “I want to learn how to do many things, and then to go and do them.”“You could not wish better,” said his boxing master. “I think you will be a man anyway. Here is your money, and run off to the Parnassos; I am not coming this evening; it is toohot for boxing.” Then turning to the officer he quoted smilingly:—ὡς χαρίεν ἔσθ’ ἄνθρωπος ὅταν ἄνθρωπος ᾖAleko heard him, though he did not understand; and as he ran down Stadium Street, he kept repeating the words to himself for fear of forgetting them, and when he sat down in his place in the class, the first thing he did was to borrow a stump of a pencil from his neighbour, and write the words on the fly leaf of his reading book. Of course they were spelled and accented all wrong, but they could be read quite plainly. The arithmetic lesson came last, and Aleko was the last pupil called up to the blackboard, so that when the boys were leaving the class he ventured to show his sentence to the schoolmaster.“What does this mean, master?”The schoolmaster took up the book.“Why do you write on your school books?” he asked sharply.“I had no paper. What does it mean?”The master read the sentence slowly.“This is ancient Greek,” he said. “You have not done any yet: you could not understandit. Even next year in the higher class, you will only do Æsop’s fables, and a little Xenophon. Better leave it,” he added laughing. “Do not trouble your head! It is not for you!”But Aleko put his book into his shoeblack box to take away with him.
IVThe next day, early in the afternoon, Aleko duly took theEmbrosto the little street off the Kolonaki Square, where the old, blind schoolmaster sat waiting for him, just inside his door. The boy sat down on the doorstep and read out all the news to him. Then he told him all about his boxing lesson, and left only when it was time for the evening newspapers to come out. And after that, the afternoon readings became a regular thing. Sometimes the boy was tired after the long, hot, hard-working morning, and would have willingly thrown himself down on his mattress for an hour or two, but he never failed the old man.Of course the readings were frequently interrupted by questions, for Aleko soon discovered that Kyr Themistocli was of those who “knew things when you asked them.”“What is an ‘agonistes’?” he asked one day, after reading of the death of an old veteran.“An ‘agonistes’ is one who fights; but now it has come to mean one who has fought in the Revolution of 1821. My father was one.”The newspaper fluttered down on the doorstep and Aleko was on his knees beside the old man, his eyes eagerly fixed on the sightless ones above him.“Your father! Did he kill Turks himself? Did he blow up a Turkish ship? Did he come down from Souli7with Marcos Botzaris? Did he see Kanaris and Miaoulis? Did he fight at Missolonghi? Was he there when the Turks passed the stake through Diakos?”8“Stop, stop, my child! you want the whole of the Revolution at once!”However, he was very patient, the old man, and Aleko heard many of those things which never get into the history books, at least into those from which he read at school. Little incidents of the many battles and sieges, tales of the misery and the hardships, and of the braving of all the misery and the hardships, for the sake of freedom. Of the Christian children who were stolen and turned into infidels! Of the boys who were taken as babes and brought up to hate and to fight againsttheir own people; of the girls who were made slaves in the harems; of the bloodshed, and the tortures, until at last the day came at Navarino when even strangers joined in arms against the cruel oppressors.“I am afraid,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that you cannot quite understand yet, how it all came to pass.”“There is only one thing I cannot understand,” said Aleko slowly.“What thing?”“When they had the strangers to help them, why they did not go everywhere, and cut offallthe Turks’ heads so that none should be left.”The old man leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.“He is terrible, the little one!” and he tried to explain, but Aleko remained rather unsatisfied on this point.“Now, will you find me some water to drink. I have talked much.”Aleko found the water, and was just putting the pitcher back in its place, when he heard a series of short sharp barks in the distance. Instead of passing out of the house door, beforewhich the old man was sitting, he vaulted out of the low kitchen window and went tearing down the street.“Aleko!” called Kyr Themistocli who heard the clatter. “Aleko! Where are you?” But there was only silence. He sighed and leaned back in his chair crossing his hands.“Of course the boy cannot stay long; it is well he comes at all,” and he sighed again.Suddenly he felt something warm, and soft, and alive on his hands. He was startled.“What is it?”“It is only Solon,” said Aleko. “Did you not hear me return? He was barking down the street and I knew he had strayed again from the cook—Anneza—and I brought him for you to see.”Kyr Themistocli always talked of “seeing” and Aleko had got into the same habit.“Put your hands over him,—so,—Is he not soft? And clever! as clever as a Christian! Whatever I tell him he understands.”Kyr Themistocli smiled.“He is not yours?”“Mine! No! He belongs to the big house higher up, the one which has the garden. Doyou know it? Someone lives there who is called ‘Spinotti.’ ”“Kyrios Spinotti, the banker; he is a very rich man.”“Is he?” said Aleko indifferently. “Well, Solon is his dog, and he is so fond of him that he fears lest the wind should blow or the rain should drop on his body; and he often goes into the kitchen to see what he eats, and Anneza says that if all poor people fared as well as this dog does, it would be well. So that is why he is so fat, you see! And when Anneza goes out, her master says she must take the dog with her for exercise, and if she does not … bad luck to her! But he is always straying. She is a stupid woman and Solon will not stay with her. Some day she will lose him and never find him again, and then there will be trouble. Now I must take him back.”“His master,” said the old man slowly, “is so fond of the dog because it was his wife’s dog, and she is dead.”Aleko, with Solon contentedly tucked under his arm, stopped short.“You know him then?”“This house in which I live, is his, and because of that, I pay very little rent for it. He, Nico Spinotti, is my old pupil from Cephalonia, of whom I told you; he who took me to the oculists. Once, a long time ago, when I first came to Athens, when I could still see, I went to his house. His wife was alive then—a beautiful woman, of one of the first names of the island—and as she was talking to me and smiling, she had the little dog, who was but a puppy, in her arms. She died—God rest her soul—of typhoid fever. Since then I have not seen Nico often, but he never forgets his old master.”“Of course not,” said Aleko, “why should he?”“Many would, my boy; many would. But he is a good man; take his dog back to him that he may not be anxious.”After Aleko had left Solon at the big house, it was already dark. He hurried down the Kiphissia Road and through the Square of the Constitution, thinking he would have more chance of selling the few papers he still held, if he went to school by that way.It was getting cooler, and the streets werefilled with people pouring out of all quarters of the city to breathe the night air after the weariness of the day spent behind closed shutters.Crowded street cars and carriages crossed and recrossed, carrying family parties down to Phalerum and the sea.The little round tables at Yannaki’s, Doree’s, and Zacharato’s were all occupied, in fact those of the latter had spread right out across the square. All around rose the hum of summer night noises, of music, of the cries of the café waiters, the tinkling of many glasses and spoons, and the distant whistle of the Kiphissia train.Groups of men lounged past, talking and laughing.A man in one of the groups beckoned to Aleko, a young man with a small dark moustache:—“Here! Have you any newspapers left?”Aleko looked up into the pleasant, laughing eyes of his boxing master.“Oristé!”9he cried eagerly. “Certainly, all you want.”“Ah, is it you, Aleko! Good evening to you!Well, give me theHestia, theAstrapi, theHesperini—and theRomios, if you have it.”Then, when he had gathered them up, he asked laughingly:—“Now, as we are old friends and I have bought so many newspapers, surely you will take off a discount for me! What shall I give you?”Aleko, being of pure Greek blood, answered in the good old Greek fashion:—“Whatever you please to give.”The young man laughed and held out a five lepta copper coin, the value of one newspaper alone.“Suppose then I please to give only this.”Not a muscle moved in Aleko’s face.“You shall give it,” he answered, then taking the coin he dropped it into his pocket, and was turning away, when the young man called him back.“Here! Stop! Did you take it seriously?” and while he was searching for more coins, he asked, “Do you boys not have to account for all the papers you sell?”“Of course; the ‘big one’ keeps count of everything.”“Well then, what would you have said when the ‘big one’ as you call him, found fifteen lepta too little?”“He would have found his money right.”“How could he?”“I would have put it there from my supper money.”The young man looked at Aleko rather curiously, and two of the other men who were with him laughed. The one of them, an older man, said:—“This is an original little specimen!” and the other, an officer, asked:—“And why should you be taking from your supper money to make this gentleman a present of three newspapers? Do you not think he is richer than you?”“That does not matter at all,” answered Aleko. “My father told me that it is a shame always to take, and never to give, however poor you are. He …” pointing with his thumb backwards, “has given me much; may I not befriend him with three newspapers?”“Ah, that of course alters the question,” remarked the officer.“I assure you,” began the young man, “thatI have never given the child a single thing!” Then turning to Aleko, “Are you thinking of the ‘tsourekia’10and red eggs at Easter? but that was from all the members of the Parnassos, not from me alone.”“No,” said Aleko, “I mean that you have taught me many things, and that is more than things which are eaten andfinished.”“Oh, ho!” laughed the officer, “this is a philosopher we have here.”“No,” said Aleko gravely, “I have not enough learning; perhaps if I could go to school all day, I might be one, some time.”The older man shook his head.“That is the way of the world.Myson can go to school all day, and every day, and his one object is to stay away.”“What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the officer of Aleko.“I do not know … yet,” he answered slowly. “I want to learn how to do many things, and then to go and do them.”“You could not wish better,” said his boxing master. “I think you will be a man anyway. Here is your money, and run off to the Parnassos; I am not coming this evening; it is toohot for boxing.” Then turning to the officer he quoted smilingly:—ὡς χαρίεν ἔσθ’ ἄνθρωπος ὅταν ἄνθρωπος ᾖAleko heard him, though he did not understand; and as he ran down Stadium Street, he kept repeating the words to himself for fear of forgetting them, and when he sat down in his place in the class, the first thing he did was to borrow a stump of a pencil from his neighbour, and write the words on the fly leaf of his reading book. Of course they were spelled and accented all wrong, but they could be read quite plainly. The arithmetic lesson came last, and Aleko was the last pupil called up to the blackboard, so that when the boys were leaving the class he ventured to show his sentence to the schoolmaster.“What does this mean, master?”The schoolmaster took up the book.“Why do you write on your school books?” he asked sharply.“I had no paper. What does it mean?”The master read the sentence slowly.“This is ancient Greek,” he said. “You have not done any yet: you could not understandit. Even next year in the higher class, you will only do Æsop’s fables, and a little Xenophon. Better leave it,” he added laughing. “Do not trouble your head! It is not for you!”But Aleko put his book into his shoeblack box to take away with him.
IVThe next day, early in the afternoon, Aleko duly took theEmbrosto the little street off the Kolonaki Square, where the old, blind schoolmaster sat waiting for him, just inside his door. The boy sat down on the doorstep and read out all the news to him. Then he told him all about his boxing lesson, and left only when it was time for the evening newspapers to come out. And after that, the afternoon readings became a regular thing. Sometimes the boy was tired after the long, hot, hard-working morning, and would have willingly thrown himself down on his mattress for an hour or two, but he never failed the old man.Of course the readings were frequently interrupted by questions, for Aleko soon discovered that Kyr Themistocli was of those who “knew things when you asked them.”“What is an ‘agonistes’?” he asked one day, after reading of the death of an old veteran.“An ‘agonistes’ is one who fights; but now it has come to mean one who has fought in the Revolution of 1821. My father was one.”The newspaper fluttered down on the doorstep and Aleko was on his knees beside the old man, his eyes eagerly fixed on the sightless ones above him.“Your father! Did he kill Turks himself? Did he blow up a Turkish ship? Did he come down from Souli7with Marcos Botzaris? Did he see Kanaris and Miaoulis? Did he fight at Missolonghi? Was he there when the Turks passed the stake through Diakos?”8“Stop, stop, my child! you want the whole of the Revolution at once!”However, he was very patient, the old man, and Aleko heard many of those things which never get into the history books, at least into those from which he read at school. Little incidents of the many battles and sieges, tales of the misery and the hardships, and of the braving of all the misery and the hardships, for the sake of freedom. Of the Christian children who were stolen and turned into infidels! Of the boys who were taken as babes and brought up to hate and to fight againsttheir own people; of the girls who were made slaves in the harems; of the bloodshed, and the tortures, until at last the day came at Navarino when even strangers joined in arms against the cruel oppressors.“I am afraid,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that you cannot quite understand yet, how it all came to pass.”“There is only one thing I cannot understand,” said Aleko slowly.“What thing?”“When they had the strangers to help them, why they did not go everywhere, and cut offallthe Turks’ heads so that none should be left.”The old man leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.“He is terrible, the little one!” and he tried to explain, but Aleko remained rather unsatisfied on this point.“Now, will you find me some water to drink. I have talked much.”Aleko found the water, and was just putting the pitcher back in its place, when he heard a series of short sharp barks in the distance. Instead of passing out of the house door, beforewhich the old man was sitting, he vaulted out of the low kitchen window and went tearing down the street.“Aleko!” called Kyr Themistocli who heard the clatter. “Aleko! Where are you?” But there was only silence. He sighed and leaned back in his chair crossing his hands.“Of course the boy cannot stay long; it is well he comes at all,” and he sighed again.Suddenly he felt something warm, and soft, and alive on his hands. He was startled.“What is it?”“It is only Solon,” said Aleko. “Did you not hear me return? He was barking down the street and I knew he had strayed again from the cook—Anneza—and I brought him for you to see.”Kyr Themistocli always talked of “seeing” and Aleko had got into the same habit.“Put your hands over him,—so,—Is he not soft? And clever! as clever as a Christian! Whatever I tell him he understands.”Kyr Themistocli smiled.“He is not yours?”“Mine! No! He belongs to the big house higher up, the one which has the garden. Doyou know it? Someone lives there who is called ‘Spinotti.’ ”“Kyrios Spinotti, the banker; he is a very rich man.”“Is he?” said Aleko indifferently. “Well, Solon is his dog, and he is so fond of him that he fears lest the wind should blow or the rain should drop on his body; and he often goes into the kitchen to see what he eats, and Anneza says that if all poor people fared as well as this dog does, it would be well. So that is why he is so fat, you see! And when Anneza goes out, her master says she must take the dog with her for exercise, and if she does not … bad luck to her! But he is always straying. She is a stupid woman and Solon will not stay with her. Some day she will lose him and never find him again, and then there will be trouble. Now I must take him back.”“His master,” said the old man slowly, “is so fond of the dog because it was his wife’s dog, and she is dead.”Aleko, with Solon contentedly tucked under his arm, stopped short.“You know him then?”“This house in which I live, is his, and because of that, I pay very little rent for it. He, Nico Spinotti, is my old pupil from Cephalonia, of whom I told you; he who took me to the oculists. Once, a long time ago, when I first came to Athens, when I could still see, I went to his house. His wife was alive then—a beautiful woman, of one of the first names of the island—and as she was talking to me and smiling, she had the little dog, who was but a puppy, in her arms. She died—God rest her soul—of typhoid fever. Since then I have not seen Nico often, but he never forgets his old master.”“Of course not,” said Aleko, “why should he?”“Many would, my boy; many would. But he is a good man; take his dog back to him that he may not be anxious.”After Aleko had left Solon at the big house, it was already dark. He hurried down the Kiphissia Road and through the Square of the Constitution, thinking he would have more chance of selling the few papers he still held, if he went to school by that way.It was getting cooler, and the streets werefilled with people pouring out of all quarters of the city to breathe the night air after the weariness of the day spent behind closed shutters.Crowded street cars and carriages crossed and recrossed, carrying family parties down to Phalerum and the sea.The little round tables at Yannaki’s, Doree’s, and Zacharato’s were all occupied, in fact those of the latter had spread right out across the square. All around rose the hum of summer night noises, of music, of the cries of the café waiters, the tinkling of many glasses and spoons, and the distant whistle of the Kiphissia train.Groups of men lounged past, talking and laughing.A man in one of the groups beckoned to Aleko, a young man with a small dark moustache:—“Here! Have you any newspapers left?”Aleko looked up into the pleasant, laughing eyes of his boxing master.“Oristé!”9he cried eagerly. “Certainly, all you want.”“Ah, is it you, Aleko! Good evening to you!Well, give me theHestia, theAstrapi, theHesperini—and theRomios, if you have it.”Then, when he had gathered them up, he asked laughingly:—“Now, as we are old friends and I have bought so many newspapers, surely you will take off a discount for me! What shall I give you?”Aleko, being of pure Greek blood, answered in the good old Greek fashion:—“Whatever you please to give.”The young man laughed and held out a five lepta copper coin, the value of one newspaper alone.“Suppose then I please to give only this.”Not a muscle moved in Aleko’s face.“You shall give it,” he answered, then taking the coin he dropped it into his pocket, and was turning away, when the young man called him back.“Here! Stop! Did you take it seriously?” and while he was searching for more coins, he asked, “Do you boys not have to account for all the papers you sell?”“Of course; the ‘big one’ keeps count of everything.”“Well then, what would you have said when the ‘big one’ as you call him, found fifteen lepta too little?”“He would have found his money right.”“How could he?”“I would have put it there from my supper money.”The young man looked at Aleko rather curiously, and two of the other men who were with him laughed. The one of them, an older man, said:—“This is an original little specimen!” and the other, an officer, asked:—“And why should you be taking from your supper money to make this gentleman a present of three newspapers? Do you not think he is richer than you?”“That does not matter at all,” answered Aleko. “My father told me that it is a shame always to take, and never to give, however poor you are. He …” pointing with his thumb backwards, “has given me much; may I not befriend him with three newspapers?”“Ah, that of course alters the question,” remarked the officer.“I assure you,” began the young man, “thatI have never given the child a single thing!” Then turning to Aleko, “Are you thinking of the ‘tsourekia’10and red eggs at Easter? but that was from all the members of the Parnassos, not from me alone.”“No,” said Aleko, “I mean that you have taught me many things, and that is more than things which are eaten andfinished.”“Oh, ho!” laughed the officer, “this is a philosopher we have here.”“No,” said Aleko gravely, “I have not enough learning; perhaps if I could go to school all day, I might be one, some time.”The older man shook his head.“That is the way of the world.Myson can go to school all day, and every day, and his one object is to stay away.”“What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the officer of Aleko.“I do not know … yet,” he answered slowly. “I want to learn how to do many things, and then to go and do them.”“You could not wish better,” said his boxing master. “I think you will be a man anyway. Here is your money, and run off to the Parnassos; I am not coming this evening; it is toohot for boxing.” Then turning to the officer he quoted smilingly:—ὡς χαρίεν ἔσθ’ ἄνθρωπος ὅταν ἄνθρωπος ᾖAleko heard him, though he did not understand; and as he ran down Stadium Street, he kept repeating the words to himself for fear of forgetting them, and when he sat down in his place in the class, the first thing he did was to borrow a stump of a pencil from his neighbour, and write the words on the fly leaf of his reading book. Of course they were spelled and accented all wrong, but they could be read quite plainly. The arithmetic lesson came last, and Aleko was the last pupil called up to the blackboard, so that when the boys were leaving the class he ventured to show his sentence to the schoolmaster.“What does this mean, master?”The schoolmaster took up the book.“Why do you write on your school books?” he asked sharply.“I had no paper. What does it mean?”The master read the sentence slowly.“This is ancient Greek,” he said. “You have not done any yet: you could not understandit. Even next year in the higher class, you will only do Æsop’s fables, and a little Xenophon. Better leave it,” he added laughing. “Do not trouble your head! It is not for you!”But Aleko put his book into his shoeblack box to take away with him.
IVThe next day, early in the afternoon, Aleko duly took theEmbrosto the little street off the Kolonaki Square, where the old, blind schoolmaster sat waiting for him, just inside his door. The boy sat down on the doorstep and read out all the news to him. Then he told him all about his boxing lesson, and left only when it was time for the evening newspapers to come out. And after that, the afternoon readings became a regular thing. Sometimes the boy was tired after the long, hot, hard-working morning, and would have willingly thrown himself down on his mattress for an hour or two, but he never failed the old man.Of course the readings were frequently interrupted by questions, for Aleko soon discovered that Kyr Themistocli was of those who “knew things when you asked them.”“What is an ‘agonistes’?” he asked one day, after reading of the death of an old veteran.“An ‘agonistes’ is one who fights; but now it has come to mean one who has fought in the Revolution of 1821. My father was one.”The newspaper fluttered down on the doorstep and Aleko was on his knees beside the old man, his eyes eagerly fixed on the sightless ones above him.“Your father! Did he kill Turks himself? Did he blow up a Turkish ship? Did he come down from Souli7with Marcos Botzaris? Did he see Kanaris and Miaoulis? Did he fight at Missolonghi? Was he there when the Turks passed the stake through Diakos?”8“Stop, stop, my child! you want the whole of the Revolution at once!”However, he was very patient, the old man, and Aleko heard many of those things which never get into the history books, at least into those from which he read at school. Little incidents of the many battles and sieges, tales of the misery and the hardships, and of the braving of all the misery and the hardships, for the sake of freedom. Of the Christian children who were stolen and turned into infidels! Of the boys who were taken as babes and brought up to hate and to fight againsttheir own people; of the girls who were made slaves in the harems; of the bloodshed, and the tortures, until at last the day came at Navarino when even strangers joined in arms against the cruel oppressors.“I am afraid,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that you cannot quite understand yet, how it all came to pass.”“There is only one thing I cannot understand,” said Aleko slowly.“What thing?”“When they had the strangers to help them, why they did not go everywhere, and cut offallthe Turks’ heads so that none should be left.”The old man leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.“He is terrible, the little one!” and he tried to explain, but Aleko remained rather unsatisfied on this point.“Now, will you find me some water to drink. I have talked much.”Aleko found the water, and was just putting the pitcher back in its place, when he heard a series of short sharp barks in the distance. Instead of passing out of the house door, beforewhich the old man was sitting, he vaulted out of the low kitchen window and went tearing down the street.“Aleko!” called Kyr Themistocli who heard the clatter. “Aleko! Where are you?” But there was only silence. He sighed and leaned back in his chair crossing his hands.“Of course the boy cannot stay long; it is well he comes at all,” and he sighed again.Suddenly he felt something warm, and soft, and alive on his hands. He was startled.“What is it?”“It is only Solon,” said Aleko. “Did you not hear me return? He was barking down the street and I knew he had strayed again from the cook—Anneza—and I brought him for you to see.”Kyr Themistocli always talked of “seeing” and Aleko had got into the same habit.“Put your hands over him,—so,—Is he not soft? And clever! as clever as a Christian! Whatever I tell him he understands.”Kyr Themistocli smiled.“He is not yours?”“Mine! No! He belongs to the big house higher up, the one which has the garden. Doyou know it? Someone lives there who is called ‘Spinotti.’ ”“Kyrios Spinotti, the banker; he is a very rich man.”“Is he?” said Aleko indifferently. “Well, Solon is his dog, and he is so fond of him that he fears lest the wind should blow or the rain should drop on his body; and he often goes into the kitchen to see what he eats, and Anneza says that if all poor people fared as well as this dog does, it would be well. So that is why he is so fat, you see! And when Anneza goes out, her master says she must take the dog with her for exercise, and if she does not … bad luck to her! But he is always straying. She is a stupid woman and Solon will not stay with her. Some day she will lose him and never find him again, and then there will be trouble. Now I must take him back.”“His master,” said the old man slowly, “is so fond of the dog because it was his wife’s dog, and she is dead.”Aleko, with Solon contentedly tucked under his arm, stopped short.“You know him then?”“This house in which I live, is his, and because of that, I pay very little rent for it. He, Nico Spinotti, is my old pupil from Cephalonia, of whom I told you; he who took me to the oculists. Once, a long time ago, when I first came to Athens, when I could still see, I went to his house. His wife was alive then—a beautiful woman, of one of the first names of the island—and as she was talking to me and smiling, she had the little dog, who was but a puppy, in her arms. She died—God rest her soul—of typhoid fever. Since then I have not seen Nico often, but he never forgets his old master.”“Of course not,” said Aleko, “why should he?”“Many would, my boy; many would. But he is a good man; take his dog back to him that he may not be anxious.”After Aleko had left Solon at the big house, it was already dark. He hurried down the Kiphissia Road and through the Square of the Constitution, thinking he would have more chance of selling the few papers he still held, if he went to school by that way.It was getting cooler, and the streets werefilled with people pouring out of all quarters of the city to breathe the night air after the weariness of the day spent behind closed shutters.Crowded street cars and carriages crossed and recrossed, carrying family parties down to Phalerum and the sea.The little round tables at Yannaki’s, Doree’s, and Zacharato’s were all occupied, in fact those of the latter had spread right out across the square. All around rose the hum of summer night noises, of music, of the cries of the café waiters, the tinkling of many glasses and spoons, and the distant whistle of the Kiphissia train.Groups of men lounged past, talking and laughing.A man in one of the groups beckoned to Aleko, a young man with a small dark moustache:—“Here! Have you any newspapers left?”Aleko looked up into the pleasant, laughing eyes of his boxing master.“Oristé!”9he cried eagerly. “Certainly, all you want.”“Ah, is it you, Aleko! Good evening to you!Well, give me theHestia, theAstrapi, theHesperini—and theRomios, if you have it.”Then, when he had gathered them up, he asked laughingly:—“Now, as we are old friends and I have bought so many newspapers, surely you will take off a discount for me! What shall I give you?”Aleko, being of pure Greek blood, answered in the good old Greek fashion:—“Whatever you please to give.”The young man laughed and held out a five lepta copper coin, the value of one newspaper alone.“Suppose then I please to give only this.”Not a muscle moved in Aleko’s face.“You shall give it,” he answered, then taking the coin he dropped it into his pocket, and was turning away, when the young man called him back.“Here! Stop! Did you take it seriously?” and while he was searching for more coins, he asked, “Do you boys not have to account for all the papers you sell?”“Of course; the ‘big one’ keeps count of everything.”“Well then, what would you have said when the ‘big one’ as you call him, found fifteen lepta too little?”“He would have found his money right.”“How could he?”“I would have put it there from my supper money.”The young man looked at Aleko rather curiously, and two of the other men who were with him laughed. The one of them, an older man, said:—“This is an original little specimen!” and the other, an officer, asked:—“And why should you be taking from your supper money to make this gentleman a present of three newspapers? Do you not think he is richer than you?”“That does not matter at all,” answered Aleko. “My father told me that it is a shame always to take, and never to give, however poor you are. He …” pointing with his thumb backwards, “has given me much; may I not befriend him with three newspapers?”“Ah, that of course alters the question,” remarked the officer.“I assure you,” began the young man, “thatI have never given the child a single thing!” Then turning to Aleko, “Are you thinking of the ‘tsourekia’10and red eggs at Easter? but that was from all the members of the Parnassos, not from me alone.”“No,” said Aleko, “I mean that you have taught me many things, and that is more than things which are eaten andfinished.”“Oh, ho!” laughed the officer, “this is a philosopher we have here.”“No,” said Aleko gravely, “I have not enough learning; perhaps if I could go to school all day, I might be one, some time.”The older man shook his head.“That is the way of the world.Myson can go to school all day, and every day, and his one object is to stay away.”“What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the officer of Aleko.“I do not know … yet,” he answered slowly. “I want to learn how to do many things, and then to go and do them.”“You could not wish better,” said his boxing master. “I think you will be a man anyway. Here is your money, and run off to the Parnassos; I am not coming this evening; it is toohot for boxing.” Then turning to the officer he quoted smilingly:—ὡς χαρίεν ἔσθ’ ἄνθρωπος ὅταν ἄνθρωπος ᾖAleko heard him, though he did not understand; and as he ran down Stadium Street, he kept repeating the words to himself for fear of forgetting them, and when he sat down in his place in the class, the first thing he did was to borrow a stump of a pencil from his neighbour, and write the words on the fly leaf of his reading book. Of course they were spelled and accented all wrong, but they could be read quite plainly. The arithmetic lesson came last, and Aleko was the last pupil called up to the blackboard, so that when the boys were leaving the class he ventured to show his sentence to the schoolmaster.“What does this mean, master?”The schoolmaster took up the book.“Why do you write on your school books?” he asked sharply.“I had no paper. What does it mean?”The master read the sentence slowly.“This is ancient Greek,” he said. “You have not done any yet: you could not understandit. Even next year in the higher class, you will only do Æsop’s fables, and a little Xenophon. Better leave it,” he added laughing. “Do not trouble your head! It is not for you!”But Aleko put his book into his shoeblack box to take away with him.
IV
The next day, early in the afternoon, Aleko duly took theEmbrosto the little street off the Kolonaki Square, where the old, blind schoolmaster sat waiting for him, just inside his door. The boy sat down on the doorstep and read out all the news to him. Then he told him all about his boxing lesson, and left only when it was time for the evening newspapers to come out. And after that, the afternoon readings became a regular thing. Sometimes the boy was tired after the long, hot, hard-working morning, and would have willingly thrown himself down on his mattress for an hour or two, but he never failed the old man.Of course the readings were frequently interrupted by questions, for Aleko soon discovered that Kyr Themistocli was of those who “knew things when you asked them.”“What is an ‘agonistes’?” he asked one day, after reading of the death of an old veteran.“An ‘agonistes’ is one who fights; but now it has come to mean one who has fought in the Revolution of 1821. My father was one.”The newspaper fluttered down on the doorstep and Aleko was on his knees beside the old man, his eyes eagerly fixed on the sightless ones above him.“Your father! Did he kill Turks himself? Did he blow up a Turkish ship? Did he come down from Souli7with Marcos Botzaris? Did he see Kanaris and Miaoulis? Did he fight at Missolonghi? Was he there when the Turks passed the stake through Diakos?”8“Stop, stop, my child! you want the whole of the Revolution at once!”However, he was very patient, the old man, and Aleko heard many of those things which never get into the history books, at least into those from which he read at school. Little incidents of the many battles and sieges, tales of the misery and the hardships, and of the braving of all the misery and the hardships, for the sake of freedom. Of the Christian children who were stolen and turned into infidels! Of the boys who were taken as babes and brought up to hate and to fight againsttheir own people; of the girls who were made slaves in the harems; of the bloodshed, and the tortures, until at last the day came at Navarino when even strangers joined in arms against the cruel oppressors.“I am afraid,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that you cannot quite understand yet, how it all came to pass.”“There is only one thing I cannot understand,” said Aleko slowly.“What thing?”“When they had the strangers to help them, why they did not go everywhere, and cut offallthe Turks’ heads so that none should be left.”The old man leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.“He is terrible, the little one!” and he tried to explain, but Aleko remained rather unsatisfied on this point.“Now, will you find me some water to drink. I have talked much.”Aleko found the water, and was just putting the pitcher back in its place, when he heard a series of short sharp barks in the distance. Instead of passing out of the house door, beforewhich the old man was sitting, he vaulted out of the low kitchen window and went tearing down the street.“Aleko!” called Kyr Themistocli who heard the clatter. “Aleko! Where are you?” But there was only silence. He sighed and leaned back in his chair crossing his hands.“Of course the boy cannot stay long; it is well he comes at all,” and he sighed again.Suddenly he felt something warm, and soft, and alive on his hands. He was startled.“What is it?”“It is only Solon,” said Aleko. “Did you not hear me return? He was barking down the street and I knew he had strayed again from the cook—Anneza—and I brought him for you to see.”Kyr Themistocli always talked of “seeing” and Aleko had got into the same habit.“Put your hands over him,—so,—Is he not soft? And clever! as clever as a Christian! Whatever I tell him he understands.”Kyr Themistocli smiled.“He is not yours?”“Mine! No! He belongs to the big house higher up, the one which has the garden. Doyou know it? Someone lives there who is called ‘Spinotti.’ ”“Kyrios Spinotti, the banker; he is a very rich man.”“Is he?” said Aleko indifferently. “Well, Solon is his dog, and he is so fond of him that he fears lest the wind should blow or the rain should drop on his body; and he often goes into the kitchen to see what he eats, and Anneza says that if all poor people fared as well as this dog does, it would be well. So that is why he is so fat, you see! And when Anneza goes out, her master says she must take the dog with her for exercise, and if she does not … bad luck to her! But he is always straying. She is a stupid woman and Solon will not stay with her. Some day she will lose him and never find him again, and then there will be trouble. Now I must take him back.”“His master,” said the old man slowly, “is so fond of the dog because it was his wife’s dog, and she is dead.”Aleko, with Solon contentedly tucked under his arm, stopped short.“You know him then?”“This house in which I live, is his, and because of that, I pay very little rent for it. He, Nico Spinotti, is my old pupil from Cephalonia, of whom I told you; he who took me to the oculists. Once, a long time ago, when I first came to Athens, when I could still see, I went to his house. His wife was alive then—a beautiful woman, of one of the first names of the island—and as she was talking to me and smiling, she had the little dog, who was but a puppy, in her arms. She died—God rest her soul—of typhoid fever. Since then I have not seen Nico often, but he never forgets his old master.”“Of course not,” said Aleko, “why should he?”“Many would, my boy; many would. But he is a good man; take his dog back to him that he may not be anxious.”After Aleko had left Solon at the big house, it was already dark. He hurried down the Kiphissia Road and through the Square of the Constitution, thinking he would have more chance of selling the few papers he still held, if he went to school by that way.It was getting cooler, and the streets werefilled with people pouring out of all quarters of the city to breathe the night air after the weariness of the day spent behind closed shutters.Crowded street cars and carriages crossed and recrossed, carrying family parties down to Phalerum and the sea.The little round tables at Yannaki’s, Doree’s, and Zacharato’s were all occupied, in fact those of the latter had spread right out across the square. All around rose the hum of summer night noises, of music, of the cries of the café waiters, the tinkling of many glasses and spoons, and the distant whistle of the Kiphissia train.Groups of men lounged past, talking and laughing.A man in one of the groups beckoned to Aleko, a young man with a small dark moustache:—“Here! Have you any newspapers left?”Aleko looked up into the pleasant, laughing eyes of his boxing master.“Oristé!”9he cried eagerly. “Certainly, all you want.”“Ah, is it you, Aleko! Good evening to you!Well, give me theHestia, theAstrapi, theHesperini—and theRomios, if you have it.”Then, when he had gathered them up, he asked laughingly:—“Now, as we are old friends and I have bought so many newspapers, surely you will take off a discount for me! What shall I give you?”Aleko, being of pure Greek blood, answered in the good old Greek fashion:—“Whatever you please to give.”The young man laughed and held out a five lepta copper coin, the value of one newspaper alone.“Suppose then I please to give only this.”Not a muscle moved in Aleko’s face.“You shall give it,” he answered, then taking the coin he dropped it into his pocket, and was turning away, when the young man called him back.“Here! Stop! Did you take it seriously?” and while he was searching for more coins, he asked, “Do you boys not have to account for all the papers you sell?”“Of course; the ‘big one’ keeps count of everything.”“Well then, what would you have said when the ‘big one’ as you call him, found fifteen lepta too little?”“He would have found his money right.”“How could he?”“I would have put it there from my supper money.”The young man looked at Aleko rather curiously, and two of the other men who were with him laughed. The one of them, an older man, said:—“This is an original little specimen!” and the other, an officer, asked:—“And why should you be taking from your supper money to make this gentleman a present of three newspapers? Do you not think he is richer than you?”“That does not matter at all,” answered Aleko. “My father told me that it is a shame always to take, and never to give, however poor you are. He …” pointing with his thumb backwards, “has given me much; may I not befriend him with three newspapers?”“Ah, that of course alters the question,” remarked the officer.“I assure you,” began the young man, “thatI have never given the child a single thing!” Then turning to Aleko, “Are you thinking of the ‘tsourekia’10and red eggs at Easter? but that was from all the members of the Parnassos, not from me alone.”“No,” said Aleko, “I mean that you have taught me many things, and that is more than things which are eaten andfinished.”“Oh, ho!” laughed the officer, “this is a philosopher we have here.”“No,” said Aleko gravely, “I have not enough learning; perhaps if I could go to school all day, I might be one, some time.”The older man shook his head.“That is the way of the world.Myson can go to school all day, and every day, and his one object is to stay away.”“What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the officer of Aleko.“I do not know … yet,” he answered slowly. “I want to learn how to do many things, and then to go and do them.”“You could not wish better,” said his boxing master. “I think you will be a man anyway. Here is your money, and run off to the Parnassos; I am not coming this evening; it is toohot for boxing.” Then turning to the officer he quoted smilingly:—ὡς χαρίεν ἔσθ’ ἄνθρωπος ὅταν ἄνθρωπος ᾖAleko heard him, though he did not understand; and as he ran down Stadium Street, he kept repeating the words to himself for fear of forgetting them, and when he sat down in his place in the class, the first thing he did was to borrow a stump of a pencil from his neighbour, and write the words on the fly leaf of his reading book. Of course they were spelled and accented all wrong, but they could be read quite plainly. The arithmetic lesson came last, and Aleko was the last pupil called up to the blackboard, so that when the boys were leaving the class he ventured to show his sentence to the schoolmaster.“What does this mean, master?”The schoolmaster took up the book.“Why do you write on your school books?” he asked sharply.“I had no paper. What does it mean?”The master read the sentence slowly.“This is ancient Greek,” he said. “You have not done any yet: you could not understandit. Even next year in the higher class, you will only do Æsop’s fables, and a little Xenophon. Better leave it,” he added laughing. “Do not trouble your head! It is not for you!”But Aleko put his book into his shoeblack box to take away with him.
The next day, early in the afternoon, Aleko duly took theEmbrosto the little street off the Kolonaki Square, where the old, blind schoolmaster sat waiting for him, just inside his door. The boy sat down on the doorstep and read out all the news to him. Then he told him all about his boxing lesson, and left only when it was time for the evening newspapers to come out. And after that, the afternoon readings became a regular thing. Sometimes the boy was tired after the long, hot, hard-working morning, and would have willingly thrown himself down on his mattress for an hour or two, but he never failed the old man.
Of course the readings were frequently interrupted by questions, for Aleko soon discovered that Kyr Themistocli was of those who “knew things when you asked them.”
“What is an ‘agonistes’?” he asked one day, after reading of the death of an old veteran.
“An ‘agonistes’ is one who fights; but now it has come to mean one who has fought in the Revolution of 1821. My father was one.”
The newspaper fluttered down on the doorstep and Aleko was on his knees beside the old man, his eyes eagerly fixed on the sightless ones above him.
“Your father! Did he kill Turks himself? Did he blow up a Turkish ship? Did he come down from Souli7with Marcos Botzaris? Did he see Kanaris and Miaoulis? Did he fight at Missolonghi? Was he there when the Turks passed the stake through Diakos?”8
“Stop, stop, my child! you want the whole of the Revolution at once!”
However, he was very patient, the old man, and Aleko heard many of those things which never get into the history books, at least into those from which he read at school. Little incidents of the many battles and sieges, tales of the misery and the hardships, and of the braving of all the misery and the hardships, for the sake of freedom. Of the Christian children who were stolen and turned into infidels! Of the boys who were taken as babes and brought up to hate and to fight againsttheir own people; of the girls who were made slaves in the harems; of the bloodshed, and the tortures, until at last the day came at Navarino when even strangers joined in arms against the cruel oppressors.
“I am afraid,” said Kyr Themistocli, “that you cannot quite understand yet, how it all came to pass.”
“There is only one thing I cannot understand,” said Aleko slowly.
“What thing?”
“When they had the strangers to help them, why they did not go everywhere, and cut offallthe Turks’ heads so that none should be left.”
The old man leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.
“He is terrible, the little one!” and he tried to explain, but Aleko remained rather unsatisfied on this point.
“Now, will you find me some water to drink. I have talked much.”
Aleko found the water, and was just putting the pitcher back in its place, when he heard a series of short sharp barks in the distance. Instead of passing out of the house door, beforewhich the old man was sitting, he vaulted out of the low kitchen window and went tearing down the street.
“Aleko!” called Kyr Themistocli who heard the clatter. “Aleko! Where are you?” But there was only silence. He sighed and leaned back in his chair crossing his hands.
“Of course the boy cannot stay long; it is well he comes at all,” and he sighed again.
Suddenly he felt something warm, and soft, and alive on his hands. He was startled.
“What is it?”
“It is only Solon,” said Aleko. “Did you not hear me return? He was barking down the street and I knew he had strayed again from the cook—Anneza—and I brought him for you to see.”
Kyr Themistocli always talked of “seeing” and Aleko had got into the same habit.
“Put your hands over him,—so,—Is he not soft? And clever! as clever as a Christian! Whatever I tell him he understands.”
Kyr Themistocli smiled.
“He is not yours?”
“Mine! No! He belongs to the big house higher up, the one which has the garden. Doyou know it? Someone lives there who is called ‘Spinotti.’ ”
“Kyrios Spinotti, the banker; he is a very rich man.”
“Is he?” said Aleko indifferently. “Well, Solon is his dog, and he is so fond of him that he fears lest the wind should blow or the rain should drop on his body; and he often goes into the kitchen to see what he eats, and Anneza says that if all poor people fared as well as this dog does, it would be well. So that is why he is so fat, you see! And when Anneza goes out, her master says she must take the dog with her for exercise, and if she does not … bad luck to her! But he is always straying. She is a stupid woman and Solon will not stay with her. Some day she will lose him and never find him again, and then there will be trouble. Now I must take him back.”
“His master,” said the old man slowly, “is so fond of the dog because it was his wife’s dog, and she is dead.”
Aleko, with Solon contentedly tucked under his arm, stopped short.
“You know him then?”
“This house in which I live, is his, and because of that, I pay very little rent for it. He, Nico Spinotti, is my old pupil from Cephalonia, of whom I told you; he who took me to the oculists. Once, a long time ago, when I first came to Athens, when I could still see, I went to his house. His wife was alive then—a beautiful woman, of one of the first names of the island—and as she was talking to me and smiling, she had the little dog, who was but a puppy, in her arms. She died—God rest her soul—of typhoid fever. Since then I have not seen Nico often, but he never forgets his old master.”
“Of course not,” said Aleko, “why should he?”
“Many would, my boy; many would. But he is a good man; take his dog back to him that he may not be anxious.”
After Aleko had left Solon at the big house, it was already dark. He hurried down the Kiphissia Road and through the Square of the Constitution, thinking he would have more chance of selling the few papers he still held, if he went to school by that way.
It was getting cooler, and the streets werefilled with people pouring out of all quarters of the city to breathe the night air after the weariness of the day spent behind closed shutters.
Crowded street cars and carriages crossed and recrossed, carrying family parties down to Phalerum and the sea.
The little round tables at Yannaki’s, Doree’s, and Zacharato’s were all occupied, in fact those of the latter had spread right out across the square. All around rose the hum of summer night noises, of music, of the cries of the café waiters, the tinkling of many glasses and spoons, and the distant whistle of the Kiphissia train.
Groups of men lounged past, talking and laughing.
A man in one of the groups beckoned to Aleko, a young man with a small dark moustache:—
“Here! Have you any newspapers left?”
Aleko looked up into the pleasant, laughing eyes of his boxing master.
“Oristé!”9he cried eagerly. “Certainly, all you want.”
“Ah, is it you, Aleko! Good evening to you!Well, give me theHestia, theAstrapi, theHesperini—and theRomios, if you have it.”
Then, when he had gathered them up, he asked laughingly:—
“Now, as we are old friends and I have bought so many newspapers, surely you will take off a discount for me! What shall I give you?”
Aleko, being of pure Greek blood, answered in the good old Greek fashion:—
“Whatever you please to give.”
The young man laughed and held out a five lepta copper coin, the value of one newspaper alone.
“Suppose then I please to give only this.”
Not a muscle moved in Aleko’s face.
“You shall give it,” he answered, then taking the coin he dropped it into his pocket, and was turning away, when the young man called him back.
“Here! Stop! Did you take it seriously?” and while he was searching for more coins, he asked, “Do you boys not have to account for all the papers you sell?”
“Of course; the ‘big one’ keeps count of everything.”
“Well then, what would you have said when the ‘big one’ as you call him, found fifteen lepta too little?”
“He would have found his money right.”
“How could he?”
“I would have put it there from my supper money.”
The young man looked at Aleko rather curiously, and two of the other men who were with him laughed. The one of them, an older man, said:—
“This is an original little specimen!” and the other, an officer, asked:—
“And why should you be taking from your supper money to make this gentleman a present of three newspapers? Do you not think he is richer than you?”
“That does not matter at all,” answered Aleko. “My father told me that it is a shame always to take, and never to give, however poor you are. He …” pointing with his thumb backwards, “has given me much; may I not befriend him with three newspapers?”
“Ah, that of course alters the question,” remarked the officer.
“I assure you,” began the young man, “thatI have never given the child a single thing!” Then turning to Aleko, “Are you thinking of the ‘tsourekia’10and red eggs at Easter? but that was from all the members of the Parnassos, not from me alone.”
“No,” said Aleko, “I mean that you have taught me many things, and that is more than things which are eaten andfinished.”
“Oh, ho!” laughed the officer, “this is a philosopher we have here.”
“No,” said Aleko gravely, “I have not enough learning; perhaps if I could go to school all day, I might be one, some time.”
The older man shook his head.
“That is the way of the world.Myson can go to school all day, and every day, and his one object is to stay away.”
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the officer of Aleko.
“I do not know … yet,” he answered slowly. “I want to learn how to do many things, and then to go and do them.”
“You could not wish better,” said his boxing master. “I think you will be a man anyway. Here is your money, and run off to the Parnassos; I am not coming this evening; it is toohot for boxing.” Then turning to the officer he quoted smilingly:—
ὡς χαρίεν ἔσθ’ ἄνθρωπος ὅταν ἄνθρωπος ᾖ
Aleko heard him, though he did not understand; and as he ran down Stadium Street, he kept repeating the words to himself for fear of forgetting them, and when he sat down in his place in the class, the first thing he did was to borrow a stump of a pencil from his neighbour, and write the words on the fly leaf of his reading book. Of course they were spelled and accented all wrong, but they could be read quite plainly. The arithmetic lesson came last, and Aleko was the last pupil called up to the blackboard, so that when the boys were leaving the class he ventured to show his sentence to the schoolmaster.
“What does this mean, master?”
The schoolmaster took up the book.
“Why do you write on your school books?” he asked sharply.
“I had no paper. What does it mean?”
The master read the sentence slowly.
“This is ancient Greek,” he said. “You have not done any yet: you could not understandit. Even next year in the higher class, you will only do Æsop’s fables, and a little Xenophon. Better leave it,” he added laughing. “Do not trouble your head! It is not for you!”
But Aleko put his book into his shoeblack box to take away with him.