portfolio and with a slight nod had taken his departure. We remained.
Finally after several hours, when the distance was becoming overspread with a darker violet, so magically beautiful in the south, the mother reminded us it was time to depart. We arose and walked down towards the hotel with the easy elastic steps that characterize carefree children. We sat down in the hotel under the handsome veranda.
Hardly had we been seated when we heard below the sounds of quarrelling and oaths. Our Greek was wrangling with the hotel-keeper, and for the entertainment of it we listened.
The amusement did not last long. “If I didn’t have other guests,” growled the hotel-keeper, and ascended the steps towards us.
“I beg you to tell me, sir,” asked the young Pole of the approaching hotel-keeper, “who is that gentleman? What is his name?”
“Eh-who knows what the fellow’s name is?” grumbled the hotel-keeper, and he gazed venomously downwards. “We call him the Vampire.”
“An artist?”
“Fine trade! He sketches only corpses. Just as soon as someone in Constantinople or here in the neighborhood dies, that very day he has a picture of the dead one completed. That fellow paints them beforehand—and he never makes a mistake—just like a vulture!”
