up to meet them from some lower cellar-depth, swearing, muttering, and banging doors; and he would come toward them howling greetings, buttoned to his chin in the frayed and faded sweater, gnarled, stooped and frosty-looking, clutching his great hands together at his waist. Then they would wait, stiffly, clumsily, fingering their hats, while with countless squints and grimaces and pursings of the lip, he scrawled out painfully their receipts—their fractional release from debt and labour, one more hard-won step toward the freedom of possession.
At length, having pocketed their money and finished the transaction, he would not permit them to depart at once; he would howl urgently at them an invitation to stay, he would offer long weedy-looking cigars to them, and they would sit uncomfortably, crouching on their buttock bones like stalled oxen, at the edges of chairs, shyly and dumbly staring at him, while he howled question, comment, and enthusiastic tribute at them.
“Why, my dear sir!” he would yell at Makropolos, the Greek. “You have a glorious past, a history of which any nation might well be proud!”
“Sure, sure!” said Makropolos, nodding vigorously. “Beeg Heestory!”
“The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!” the old man howled, “where burning Sappho loved and sung—” (Phuh! phuh! phuh! phuh! phuh!)
“Sure, sure!” said Makropolos again, nodding good-naturedly but wrinkling his lowering finger’s-breadth of brow in a somewhat puzzled fashion. “Tha’s right! You got it!”
“Why, my dear sir!” Uncle Bascom cried. “It has been the ambition of my lifetime to visit those hallowed scenes, to stand at sunrise on the Acropolis, to explore the glory that was Greece, to see the magnificent ruins of the noblest of ancient civ-i-liz-a-tions!”
For the first time a dark flush, a flush of outraged patriotism, began to burn upon the swarthy yellow of Mr. Makropolos’s cheek: his manner became heavy and animated, and in a moment he said with passionate conviction:
“No, no, no! No ruin! Wat you t’ink, eh! Athens fine town! We got a million pipples dere!” He struggled for a word, then cupped his hairy paws indefinitely: “You know? Beeg! O, ni-ez!” he added greasily, with a smile. “Everyt’ing good! We got everyt’ing good dere as you got here! You know?” he said with a confiding and painful effort. “Everyt’ing ni-ez! Not old! No, no, no!” he cried with a rising and indignant vigour. “New! de same as here. Ni-ez! You get good and cheap—everyt’ing! Beeg place, new house, dumbwaiter, elevator—wat chew like!—oh, ni-
