"Yes, friends! If some ransoms not come they threaten to send my father small bits of me to make him not forgets. First my ears and my fingers and my toes; and then, if no ransoms, my trunks." "You don't mean portmanteaus?" I interrupted. "Do you mean to say they'd cut off your limbs and send your body home?" "Yes, of course," said Oscar. "I mean my trunks--my chests, my bellies. We wander about all night and steal sheeps for food. In the daytime we sleeps or sing Greek songs, and I dance on a big stone till they call me their brother." "Did you never--eh--wash?" I asked. Oscar mournfully shook his head. "What for? It was no goods." I shuddered, but thought it well not to ask for further details. "One day I did write a letter to my father," said Oscar. "Stefanos was a little angry; for the soldiers come after us, and he has much exercise with me in the mountains. 'My dear father,' I write, 'send me one big Bibles and seventeen pairs of leather trousers. The Bibles is for my soul; one trousers is for my body; and the others two each for my friends. If some ransoms do not come in one weeks I shall be all in little pieces. Take care of my dogs, and do not blame Stefanos, for it is all businesses.' And the trousers and the Bibles and some ransoms comes all in one heap. Stefanos embraces me; I kiss all the others; they take me to the plains, and I find myself running homes. Then one old woman sees me far off. She screams. Another old woman sees me. She screams. Another old woman sees me. She screams. Whilst I did run home the air was full of old womans and screams," continued Oscar, meditatively. "And when I get to the ford, the old womans they all kiss me. That was very painfuls; I do not like to kiss old womans. The old womans takes me by the legs and the arms and the trunks to carry me over the ford and up the hill, and whenever I tried to get downs they did kiss me, so I did not try much more. Oh, it was very terribles, and I had never so much before been kissed by anybodies. They take me home, and my father comes to the door and he say, 'Welcome, my sons, which is some more alives.' And more old womans kiss me, and I embrace my father, and they asked me where the soldiers could find Stefanos and his brother and his uncles and his nephews, but I would not tells." "Why?" "He was my friends," said Oscar, indignantly. "That is why. It was all businesses, like some other businesses. Ah, those soldiers! Cowards! Assassins!" "What did they do?" "Oh, it was very painfuls," said Oscar, with regretful melancholy. "Very painfuls!" "What was?" "It was very painfuls. For three months the soldiers did hunt poor Stefanos and his brother, and killed all the others. One day I was sitting on a divan after shooting boars, and the Greek priest of the village and his friends came in with the head of Stefanos in a bundle. The brother of Stefanos had escaped. The Greek priest wore a purple robe, which was some presents from the Governor of Smyrna."