“I don’t know,” I replied, “but that’s the answer the dead philosopher made to Charon.”
“If he were dead, how could he make an answer?” he asked.
Thereupon I found myself in my most favourite pastime—initiating somebody into the Greek writings; and as I explained to him Lucian’s “Dialogues of the Dead,” the old Turk listened intently, paddling very slowly, slightly bending toward me, his kind eyes twinkling, his face wreathed in smiles—looking very much like a nice, big, red apple, shrivelled by the frost and sun.
By the time I had finished the story of the philosopher, we were approaching the other side of the Golden Horn.
“You see,” I concluded, “you get more than Charon did out of the transaction; and besides, since I am going over there three times a week, you may become my regular boatman, and if you are over here with a fare at sunset you may wait for me, and take me back, too—only then I shall pay you one para less.”
It was not because I was of a miserly disposition that I was bargaining so hard; but I had only one medjedié a month, and the elders invariably borrowed a part of it back from me, so that I was always in straitened circumstances.
“Why are you going over there so often?” he asked kindly.
I liked his baggy bloomers, of the colour of the stained glass windows one sees in the old cathedrals; I liked his being faithful to the turban, and I fell in love with his kind, beaming old face. Besides, the way he enjoyed the story of the philosopher and Charon convinced me that he was not like most of the dreadful elders—so I told him the reason.
His oars again became suspended in the air, and he listened with intent interest.
“Is it in the Koran you read all those things?”