Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/173

 "To cross," I replied, with the same haughty manner as before.

He bent down, unfastened the rope with which his slender, graceful little caïque was tied, and I stepped into it and settled myself blissfully among the cushions in the bottom.

Before he had rowed me half-way over I remembered that I had forgotten to strike a bargain with him. "By the way," I said casually, "what is your fare?"

"A kourous and a half" (threepence) he said promptly.

"What!" I cried. "If you are not ready to accept half that, you may just as well take me back."

He stopped rowing. "Take you back! But where would be the profit?"

"I don't know," I replied, "but that's the answer the dead philosopher made to Charon."

"If he were dead, how could he make an answer?" he asked.

Thereupon I found myself in my most favourite pastime—initiating somebody into the Greek writings; and as I explained to him Lucian's "Dialogues of the Dead," the old Turk listened intently, paddling very slowly, slightly bending toward me, his kind eyes twinkling, his face wreathed in smiles—looking very much like a nice, big, red apple, shrivelled by the frost and sun.