Lobster were by this time quite a distance away, jamming the spurs into their horses. The band rose as one man and discharged their weapons. The horses were killed, the young men disengaged themselves, took to their heels, and when they reached the city, warned the police, who started in pursuit of the brigands the second morning after. Our excellent Christodule learned with grief of the death of the two horses; but he found not a word of blame for the killers. "What would you have?" he asked with charming simplicity, "it is their business." All Greeks are, more or less, of our host's opinion. It is not that the brigands spare their countrymen and reserve their harshness for strangers, but a Greek, robbed by his brother, says to himself with a certain resignation, that the money is all in the family. The populace sees itself plundered by the brigands, as a woman of the people who is beaten by her husband, admires him because he strikes hard. Native moralists complained of the excesses committed in the country, as a father deplores his son's pranks. He groans loudly, but secretly admires him; he would be ashamed if he was like his neighbor's son who never had to be spoken to. It was a fact, that at the time of my arrival, the hero of Athens was the scourge of Attica. In the salons and in the cafés, in the barber-shops where the common people congregated, at the pharmacies where the bourgeoise were to be found, in the muddy streets of the bazars, in the dusty square of Belle-Gréce, at the theater, at the Sunday concerts, and upon the road to Patissia, one heard only of the great Hadgi-Stavros; one swore only by Hadgi-Stavros; Hadgi-Stavros the invincible, Hadgi-Stavros the terror of the police, Hadgi-Stavros, "The King of the Mountains!" They almost composed (God pardon me) a litany on Hadgi-Stavros. One Sunday, a little while after his adventure, John Harris dined with us; I started Christodule upon the subject of Hadgi-Stavros. Our host had often visited him, years before, during the War of Independence, when brigandage was less discussed than now.