“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 γνῶθι σεαυτόν, 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.”