"You must do as I do," said Michali, dipping his own chunk and eating it from his fork. "This is lenten soup--black-eyed beans cooked with oil. Over this was the contest between Church and State. The mayor's cook makes famous lenten soup and Kyr' Nikolaki wished to send for some, but Papa-Maleko desired the dinner himself to furnish." "_Kalo?_" asked the mayor, holding a huge chunk of dripping bread suspended in midair over the bowl. "He asks you is it good?" explained Michali to Lindbohm. "_Kalo? kalo?_" repeated Kyr' Nikolaki. "_Kalo_," replied Lindbohm. A medium of general communication was now established. Papa-Maleko and Kyr' Nikolaki with nearly every bite smiled upon Curtis and Lindbohm and asked "_Kalo?_" and they both replied, "_Kalo, kalo_." After dinner the demarch departed, taking Michali with him, and Panayota, made up the bed on the floor for Curtis and Lindbohm. She brought in a mattress from outdoors, which somewhat mystified Curtis until he remembered that the stone stairway to the upper regions was built on the outside of the house. She laid a sheet on the mattress and over that a quilt with a sheet sewed to it in such a manner that the end was doubled over and bore the initials, beautifully embroidered, of Panayota Nicolaides. CHAPTER V SOME PICTURES AND A RECITATION Curtis was confined to his room four days with the foot, which time he devoted assiduously to the method. On the fifth day he was able, with the aid of a rustic crutch, to get down to the demarch's café. Michali assisted him as he hobbled down the stony street, his lame foot clumsily bundled in rags and swinging in the air. Lindbohm strode on ahead, instinctively making sword-like passes with the rattan cane. The latter's appearance had been much dignified by the assumption of a swashbuckling pair of yellow boots. He had been repeatedly offered a Cretan fez, but he clung with inexplicable affection to the shapeless and uneasy straw, still tethered to his buttonhole. "Behold!" cried Michali, as they reached a turn in the street whence the view was unobstructed over the tops of the houses. "Yonder is the ravine where we came up, and there is the sea. You will hardly find a village in all Greece from which the sea is not visible."