"Did I want to wake you? It was time to get up. The big one sent
me. And what are you crying about now, any way? For the sweets you
never had?"
The small boy, Andoni, gulped down a sob.
"No!"
"What then?"
"I only sold two newspapers; the other boys got before me; and the
big one will beat me when he sees all these left."
Aleko shrugged his shoulders.
"You will cry when he beats you; what is the use of crying now?" Then
he looked out again, over the square.
Watching people and things always kept him very busy. There were so
many things going on at once. Two coachmen, on the side of the square
where the carriages stand, were swearing at each other, and they were
using swear-words quite different from those Aleko had heard in his
village. A man from Rhodes was trying to sell his embroidered bags to
some foreigners, of those who walk about with little red books in their
hands, at double the price he usually asked for them. Some men were
carrying big trunks down the steps of the hotel, and three ladies with
bright coloured sunshades were going towards the street of the shops.
Two men, an old white bearded one and a fat one who walked with his
legs wide apart and his hands behind his back, passed in front of
the two boys.
"Ah, my friend," the older one was saying; "you are quite right,
but gnôthi seauton, know thyself, is a very difficult thing."
Suddenly Aleko stooped and pushed Andoni off the box.
"Run!" he said, "they have no newspapers; run after them!"
The dirty little boy picked up his sheaf of papers and rushed after
the men, who had already turned the corner.
In a few minutes he returned, jingling some copper coins in his hand.
"They bought three," he said, "the old one took the Acropolis and
the fat one the Embros, and the Nea Himera. Why did you not sell them
yours? You have some left."
"Because I am waiting here for a man whose shoes I black every
morning. He always comes at this time, and I wait for him."
"Do you mean," asked Andoni eagerly, "a big man with a beard, who
wears a soft gray hat?"
"Yes; why?"
"Because I saw him now at the corner where the flower boys
stand. Yoryi, the one who squints, had just polished his boots for him,
and the gentleman was paying him."
Aleko wasted no words. He seized his box, and ran round the corner
of the square with such speed that his feet raised a cloud of dust
all around him.
A group of shoeblacks and flower boys were standing about the end of
the Kiphissia Road, but there was no sign of a client of any sort.
Aleko rushed up to a boy much bigger than himself, with squinting eyes,
and caught hold of his arm:--
"Did you clean the boots of the man with the black beard?" he
asked. "Do you not know he is my client?"
The elder boy shook him off roughly.
"You, with your clients!" he muttered.
The other boys sniggered.
"You are late, you see, to-day, Aleko; another got before you."
The lad's face reddened.
"He always asks for me, and I was waiting for him just there."
"Oh," said one of the flower boys, tying up a big bunch of scarlet
carnations as he spoke, "your client asked for you all right, but
Yoryi here, told him that you had been sent on a message and that he
was your partner."
Yoryi laughed noisily.
"That is how I do business."
But his laugh broke off in the middle. Aleko had come close to him,
and with one well-directed kick had sent the big shoeblack's box
flying into the middle of the road.
Brushes flew here and there, bottles of yellow and black polish were
broken and their contents spilt in the dust, and round metal boxes
rolled in all directions. Yoryi seized hold of Aleko by the neck and
struck him savagely on the head.
"A bad year to you!" he shouted, as blow followed blow. "Did you not
know that you would eat stick if you played those tricks on me? Did
you not know it? Take that then! And that! And that! Did you think you
could touch me and go free?" and the blows came down like rain. At last
he flung the smaller boy away from him and began sullenly collecting
the scattered contents of his box.
Aleko picked himself up, staggering a little as he stood.
"Oh, I knew!" he shouted, staunching a bleeding nose on the sleeve
of his tunic. "Of course I knew. Do I not eat stick every day? Am I
not the smallest? But it was you who did not know! You who thought
you could cheat me and be safe! You did not know that your box would
be all over the road, that your bottles would be broken, that all
your things would be so spoiled that you could not steal other lads'
clients this morning again! Pick them up then! Stoop! Yes, stoop in
the dust and pick them up!"
The other boys were laughing at Yoryi now.
"He has played you a good trick, the little one!"
"Did you think," shouted Aleko, "that you could touch me and go
free?" and before Yoryi, furious now with rage, could catch him a
second time, he doubled, and ran round the corner of the University
Road.
Being fleet of foot, he left Yoryi far behind him, and running up
one street and down another and across a third, he soon arrived safe
and unpursued at the top end of Stadium Street and back again in
Constitution Square.
A sound of music came from the direction of the Palace and he looked
up eagerly. The guard was changing; he could hear the measured tread
of the soldiers. Though he had been in Athens nearly two years the
spectacle had never lost its charm for him.
Pushing, stooping, dodging, he elbowed his way to the edge of the
pavement and waited.
On they came, the officer, the band, the marching men, the beautiful
blue flag held aloft by a white-gloved sergeant. Aleko knew all
about it, for a soldier had told him one day that you had to be a
good-conduct man to be allowed to carry the flag, and that you had
to wear white gloves: and the boy had long ago decided that when his
time came to serve as a soldier, he would always carry the flag.
Up sprang all the officers who happened to be sitting at the little
café tables in the square, and stood saluting. Civilians who were
passing stopped and uncovered; coachmen stood up on their boxes
bare-headed; Aleko pulled off his tattered cap in imitation and stood
with the hot sun shining on his tumbled fair hair.
An old man looked down on him and smiled. Then, catching sight of
the dust and smears of blood on the boy's face, he remarked with a
chiding gesture:--
"Ah! you have been fighting."
"No," answered Aleko, "I have been beaten." Then emboldened he asked,
"Tell me, why do people take their hats off?"
The old man stared at the question.
"Why, to the flag, of course."
"Yes, I know; but why?"
"Why? To show respect to the flag, of course."
"Why does it show respect when one takes one's hat off?"