"That is not true--but I like it." "Do you know, my lad," said Kyr Themistocli, "that with a name such as yours you ought to grow up a great man." "But if one cannot?" "That is only if one is not born so," said the old man shaking his head, "but if one is born with brains, and will, one always can." "No!" burst out Aleko, "without learning one cannot and when one is poor how is one to get learning?" "We live in a country, my boy, where learning is free." "And must not one live while one is learning? And must one not keep one's mother and the little ones who cannot work?" "Did you not say that you go to the Parnassos School?" "Of course I go, but already I am in the third class, next year I shall be in the fourth, which is like the first Hellenic class in municipal schools, and after that, there are no more classes at the Parnassos." Kyr Themistocli thought for a moment. "How old are you?" "In August, on the Virgin's Day, I close my twelve years." "Why are you in the third class if you have only been here two years?" "Oh, the first is only for those who cannot read, I did not pass through it at all." "You could read already, when you came from your village?" "Long before that." "Who taught you?" Aleko shifted from one bare foot to another and thought for a moment. "I do not know," he said at last. "My father had three books, and there were newspapers which the coffee-house keeper threw away, and ... I learnt." "If you finish the fourth class of the Parnassos, you will know a good many things." "What will be the benefit? When there is no more night school and I have to work with my hands all day, as the years pass I shall forget all they have taught me, and I shall be an unlearned man. The member who spoke at the examinations last year, told us that an unlearned man is like wood that has not been hewn." The boy pushed back his chair and stood up. "Why do they say such things to us? Can we help it if we are poor? It is bad to know only the beginning of things! It is worse I think than to know nothing. Sometimes I am sorry that I went to the Parnassos!" And Aleko turned towards the window and began drawing his finger over the dust on the pane. But the old schoolmaster called him:-- "Find the Hestia," he said, "and read to me, will you?" So Aleko read for some time by the fading light. He read of many things, and amongst others of how a great big warship had been launched and was soon to be brought to Greece ... the Averoff. "Why do they call it the Averoff? What does it mean?" "It is the name of a very good, and very rich man, who gave the money to build it." "Will it fight the Turks?" asked Aleko eagerly. "Good grant it, my boy! And may I be alive to hear of it." "When it does, I will read all about it to you." "Thank you," said the old man very seriously. Then Aleko went on reading till he could see no longer. "You read well," said Kyr Themistocli slowly. "Will you come again? you will give me pleasure."