Of course, no playing in the street was ever allowed, but sometimes when Marina the cook slipped out late to buy a bowl of "yaourti"[7] for supper, or some chicory for salad, she would take him with her, and he would stand about while she bargained, envying the blue-pinafored boys of the neighborhood tearing and whooping down the street or gathered together over their marbles on the edge of the pavement. Pavlo played marbles at his school near the National Library, when he managed to get there ten minutes before lessons began; but the class-bell always rang in the middle of the most interesting game, and the ten minutes between each lesson were of no good because no play was allowed then, at that school. Only the bigger classes could do as they liked, the little boys were marshaled in order of size by one of the overlookers and marched round and round the big courtyard, so that, as Pavlo heard the director explaining to his uncle one day, "the little pupils should have all the benefit of fresh air and exercise during this short interval, without any danger of their minds being distracted from the lesson they had just been taught!" But the "little pupils'" minds were as a rule more occupied with the secret exchange of pen nibs, the recognized school currency, than in pondering over the last lesson. And then, when June had passed into July, when summer in town was at its hottest and dustiest, when the examinations were just over, and there was not even school to break the monotony of the long empty days, a wonderful change came into Pavlo's life. It happened like this. One afternoon he had just got up from the enforced lying down with a book, which he hated--especially as the book was not a new one, but only Louki Laras[8] which he had read already four times, so that even if one skipped the descriptions, the exciting parts were too familiar--and was wandering about the house, a piece of bread in one hand and a piece of chocolate in the other, when he came across Aphrodite packing his uncle's valise. He was going away, she told Pavlo, for some days. There was nothing extraordinary in that. People were always sending for the doctor from one part and another of the provinces, to come and cure them, and Pavlo was quite accustomed to being alone in the house with the two maids, and having his dinner and supper served on a tray at one end of the dining room table. The only advantage of this was that Marina let him choose his dinners, and that he could have pilaf or even "halva"[9] two days running, and need never touch soup or boiled meat all the time his uncle was away. But the extraordinary thing happened a few moments later, when his uncle let himself into the house, and walked right up into the room where the packing was going on. "Is the valise full?" he inquired. Aphrodite straightened herself up.