“Aleko! Aleko! You are not listening!”
“What is it? I hear.” But he did not look down at the grubby little fellow who continued sniffing:—
“I dreamt, I tell you, as truly as I see you here I did, that I went away somewhere, and that I found a great big sweet shop, bigger than Yannaki’s or Doree’s, ever so much bigger, and in the shop there were dishes and jars and trays, and trays, and trays all around of chocolates, and baklava,[1] and kourabiedes, and little cakes with pink and green and white sugar all over them; and there were piles of comfits, and caramels,—oh, and heaps of other things; and …” warming to his description, “bottles and bottles of cherry syrup and lemonade, and I dreamt that the man of the shop waved his hand—so,—over everything and said ‘Please,’—Aleko, do you hear? ‘Please eat all the things you want.’ And then,” with a savage tug at the tunic, “then you came and waked me!”
Aleko looked down at him for a minute:—
“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!”
“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.