Next morning, when he got up, part of the bodily soreness had
disappeared, but his indignation was, if anything, greater.
"Just let him wait and see!" he kept muttering to himself as, carrying
his morning newspapers, he waited in a little grocer's shop while
Kyr Themistocli's coffee was being weighed. "Just let him wait! The
next time I find his dog straying--and that will be to-morrow or the
day after, unless he turns Anneza away--I will take it and give it to
someone else, to someone who lives very far away, where he will never
find it again. May they never call me Aleko again if I do not!" As
he was leaving the shop with the bag of coffee in his hand, he found
outside the door an empty petroleum tin which he kicked viciously right
out into the middle of the square. It fell bounding and rebounding with
tremendous clatter against the curbstone, and the noise did him good.
However, he was not to wait even until to-morrow for his revenge,
though it did not happen exactly as he had planned it.
Before the clang of the falling tin had ceased, he saw at the end
of the square, just where the street car tracks come into it, a
little flash of something white tearing along at full speed. In hot
pursuit, but very far behind, came Anneza, with a packet of macaroni
in one hand and two cucumbers in the other. At first Aleko could
not understand why she seemed in such terrible haste, but in another
second he had understood.
From behind the corner of a chemist's shop a man darted out, a man
armed with an open bag of thin knotted rope mounted on a long stick,
something which looked like a monstrous butterfly net; and this net
came down with a dexterous swoop, born of long practice, and rose
again into the air, carrying with it the little white, squealing,
wriggling bundle which was Solon.
Anneza, in the distance, gave a loud shriek, and one of her cucumbers
fell unheeded to the ground. On she rushed, her apron strings flying
behind her; but the man was quicker.
The iron cage on wheels, with its load of barking, snarling prisoners,
stood behind him; with one hand, he lifted up the little spring
door at the top of it, and with a twist of the other he emptied poor
Solon on top of the other dogs. Then he dropped the lid and whipped
up the horse.
"Stop!" panted Anneza, waving her arms wildly, "stop I tell you!"
She was close to the cart by this time; but just at that moment,
the street car which was going up towards the Maraslion met the one
which was coming down, at the corner, and for a moment there was a
block. Anneza, trying to squeeze herself between the two, was pushed
here and there by mounting and descending passengers, and by the time
she got clear the man with the iron cage was out of sight.
But Aleko had been quicker. He had wheeled round as soon as he saw
the dog caught, and running down a short cut had met the cart as it
came out on the street below. He stood right in its way and signaled
to the man.
"The little dog you have just taken," he cried, "is not a stray
dog. He belongs...."
"Stand out of my way," shouted the man savagely, "or I will bring my
whip down on your head!" and he brandished a heavy whip dangerously
near the boy.
Aleko jumped aside only just in time, and the cart went rattling down
the steep incline with a clatter of its iron laths which drowned the
barking of its occupants.
Instinctively Aleko ran back to the square.
Anneza was gone.
"Do you know," he asked of a woman who was weighing some purple figs
at the door of a fruit shop, "where the serving maid has gone who
was here just now?"
"Anneza, from the Spinotti's, you mean?" answered the woman. "The
'boya' took her dog away in his cart, and she has run back to the
house to tell her master."
"By the time she finds him," said Aleko, "it will be too late." And
he tore across the square and down the street leading to Academy
Road. A street car was passing. He leaped on the platform dragging
his box after him. The conductor looked at him angrily.
"Do you not know that you cannot sell your newspapers while the car
is in motion?"
"I am not selling anything," answered Aleko with dignity; "I am
riding." And he produced ten lepta from a pocket inside his tunic.
He got off the street car at Patissia Road and turned to his
right. When he came to a large house, standing somewhat back from
the road, he stopped short. An older boy, also with a shoeblack's
box beside him, was leaning against the railings of the enclosure.
"Is this the Central Police Station?" inquired Aleko.
"Yes."
"Does the Chief of the Police live here?"
The older boy stared at him.
"He does not live here, he has a fine house of his own near the Palace,
but he comes here every day. I know, because this is my stand, and
I see him when he comes and goes."
Then Aleko asked another question.
"Does the 'boya' bring the dogs he catches here?"
"He brings them here first, to be counted, and then he takes them
down there." And the strange shoeblack jerked with his thumb over
his shoulder towards the Homonoia[15] Square.
"Down where?"
"Far down the Piræus Road."
"What does he do with them there?"
"Puts them into a room which kills them."
"How can it kill them--a room?"
"Do I know?"
"When does the cart come here?"
The elder boy looked up at the sun.
"Now, any minute."
"Listen," said Aleko, "the 'boya' has taken just now up at the Kolonaki
a dog that is not a stray one. It is a very good dog, and it belongs
to someone who counts for something. If I wait here, and show the
Chief of the Police which it is, will he give it to me?"
"Are you mad?" asked the strange boy contemptuously. "Do you think
the Chief himself sees the dogs, or that he will listen to you?"
"Then what shall I do?"
"If you want the dog, go down to the place in the Piræus Road, and find
the 'boya' alone. Now, these hot days, they are afraid of mad dogs,
and they pay him one drachma for every dog he catches: so, perhaps,
if you were to give him more...."
"Where is the place?"
"I have never been there. Go down the Piræus Road and ask."
Aleko started off towards the square at a good pace. The heat of the
day had begun and he had eaten nothing yet. But he wiped his forehead
with the back of his sleeve and plunged into the Piræus Road. The
strange boy had told him that the place was "far down," therefore it
was no good inquiring before he reached the Gas Works. It was a long
way; if the "boya's" cart only stopped a few moments at the Police
Station, it might almost be there before him; so he hurried on,
quickening his pace, and now and then breaking into a little run.
He must get there in time! He must! Poor little Solon! Poor little
warm, white creature, so full of life! "As clever as a Christian,"
as he had told Kyr Themistocli the other day. At this point, he looked
at the paper bag of coffee still unconsciously clutched in one hand.
"The old man will eat his bread dry this morning after all; well,
what is to be done? It is a small evil."
After passing the Gas Works he began to ask his way; but most of the
passers-by seemed vague.
"Somewhere down there," they said. A carter told him the place was
after Phalerum, but a second man contradicted him.
"What are you saying, brother? It is far closer than that!"