Aleko picked out one of his three remaining Hestias and held it out, but the old man made no movement to take it. He was tall, straight, and gray haired, and somehow it was not easy to imagine his face as ever having been young. He wore shabby gray clothes, very frayed and stained. "Here is your Hestia." "Put it down here on the step beside me. Take your five lepta," and from an inner pocket the old man produced a copper coin, but as he held it out, his stick came into sharp contact with Aleko's elbow. The boy gave a little cry and began to rub it. "I have hurt you, my lad," said the old man, bending forward and dropping his stick with a clatter. "You must forgive me! I cannot see; I am blind." Aleko stopped rubbing his elbow and looked curiously into the old man's face. The wide open brown eyes seemed to be looking at him. He remembered an old blind woman who used to go about asking for alms in Megaloupolis, but her head was always sunk on her chest, and her eyes were closed. "Are you quite blind?" "Quite." "Your eyes do not look blind." "But they are." Aleko held up his hand, high above his head. "Can you not see how many fingers I am holding up now?" "Not even that you have lifted your hand; not even that you stand before me." "That is a pity you should be blind," said the boy slowly. "You are not very old yet. Have you been blind long?" "Two years now." "That was before I came to the town. And how did you lose your light?" "I had a bad fever for many months, and afterwards my eyes never got well; then they grew worse and worse, till the darkness fell. There is a good man who was once my pupil and who is rich now, and he took me to the best oculists; but they said they could do nothing." Aleko passed his fingers through his hair and hesitated; but his curiosity got the better of him. "Tell me, master, why do you buy a newspaper if you cannot see to read it?" "It is read to me." "Your children read it to you?" queried the boy. "No, I have no children. There is a young man,--a student, who lives in the next house,--and every day at noon I give him ten lepta to read the whole newspaper to me. One must know the news and what the outside world is doing." Then half to himself he added, "Though the eyes be blind the mind must see." But Aleko frowned. "What! Pay lepta to have the news read to you! That is a sin! Better keep the good money for bread. In our village, he who can read reads aloud, and the others listen, but no one pays." "In the town it is different," sighed the old man. "In small places people are kinder. I know, for I taught school for many years at Lixuri in Cephalonia and one helped the other when there was trouble." Aleko looked up suddenly. "Give me your name, master." "My name is Themistocli."