The group was by this time surrounded by the entire population of the town, or as much of it as was not out in the vineyards, or on the hills with the sheep and the goats. Curtis rose on one leg.
"Behold the human stork," he exclaimed in English, because he did not know the Greek for "stork."
"What does he say?" asked the demarch. Michali explained the joke at length. "He compares himself to a stork, because a stork usually stands on one leg. He, being lame, and unable to stand on both legs, rests his entire weight on one, like a stork."
"But he does not at all resemble a stork," objected several voices.
"They say you do not resemble a stork," explained the interpreter.
"O, thanks! But I was joking. Don't you Cretans understand a joke?"
"He says he is joking, and he fears we do not understand a joke."
"It is a joke, my children," cried the demarch, "an American joke, and it is the part of hospitality and politeness to laugh," whereupon he smote the table with his mighty palm and burst into a roar of Olympian laughter. The constituency looked on in silent amazement.
"Laugh, you donkeys!" cried the demarch. "Laugh, I command you. Are we uncivilized like the Turks?" And he strode threateningly toward the group, which broke in all directions and darted for cover. They laughed, however, long and conscientiously at first, but, ere they had ceased, a genuine ring crept into their mirth. The priest and the demarch assisted Curtis to his temporary residence. On the way shockheaded boys looked out at him from over ruined walls of adobe and cobblestones, and, pointing their fingers, cried, "There goes the stork!" and girls peeping from behind doors or pushing their blooming faces through screens of trellised vine, giggled, "How are you, Mr. Stork?"
Curtis' name was seldom asked in the mountains of Crete. He was known and is to this day, as Kyrios Pelargos—Mr. Stork. As soon as opportunity presented he made a new head in his note book and entered the following observation: