“Do you mean,” asked Andoni eagerly, “a big man with a beard, who wears a soft gray hat?”
“Yes; why?”
“Because I saw him now at the corner where the flower boys stand. Yoryi, the one who squints, had just polished his boots for him, and the gentleman was paying him.”
Aleko wasted no words. He seized his box, and ran round the corner of the square with such speed that his feet raised a cloud of dust all around him.
A group of shoeblacks and flower boys were standing about the end of the Kiphissia Road, but there was no sign of a client of any sort.
Aleko rushed up to a boy much bigger than himself, with squinting eyes, and caught hold of his arm:—
“Did you clean the boots of the man with the black beard?” he asked. “Do you not know he is my client?”
The elder boy shook him off roughly.
“You, with your clients!” he muttered.
The other boys sniggered.