Well, he must promise him the money, that was all. Surely, if he told him that the master of the dog would pay him well, the man would bring it up to the house himself, even if he did not trust Aleko to take it away.
The clatter came nearer and nearer, and now Aleko could distinguish the two-wheeled cart with its monster iron cage, between whose flat bars dogs’ heads and paws of all shapes and sizes were thrust out.
Behind the cart ran the usual following of ragged urchins who always seem to spring up about the “boya’s” route.
Aleko was grasping the bars of the cart before it came to a stand-still. He thought he had seen something small and white at the farthest end of the cage. And as he got round to the back there was a shrill bark which rose above the rest, and the something small and white sat up inside the cart and begged very piteously.
Aleko suddenly felt a wave of fury go over him.
He forgot all his pre-arranged plans; all the promises he was to have made.
The man had stopped the cart, and was raising his arms in a prodigious yawn. Aleko caught hold of his sleeve, and pulled him towards the rear of the cart.
“Open it!” he cried. “Open it this minute! I want that dog! That little white one there, with the black patch over the eye. You took it from the Kolonaki, and it was not a stray dog. You took it while the woman who had it was in a shop! You had no right to touch it! Give it to me! Give it to me quickly!” and the more Solon inside the cage heard the familiar voice, the more vigorously his little paws shook up and down.
The man, a short, sickly-looking man, with an evil, lowering face, dragged his sleeve away from the boy’s grasp.
“Give it to you, indeed!” he shouted, “and from where have you sprung to be giving me orders? Now clear off!”