s--The boy had looked about him
a minute, and pointed to the shoes of the chief of police gleaming
in the sunlight--patent leathers, and dress suit, hurried away from
a political banquet the night before. The men smiled and the pencils
raced.... There had been another man who drove the machine, but the boy
had not noticed him--his swift glance had taken in only the child, it
seemed, and the faces that framed her.

A little later they drove into the city--the boy accompanying them, and
the surgeon and Achilles, who had hurried out with the first news and
had listened to his son's story with dark, silent eyes. He sat in the
car close to Alcibiades, one hand on the back of the seat, the other
on the boy's hand. Through the long miles they did not speak. The boy
seemed resting in his father's strength. It was only when they reached
the scene of his disaster that he roused himself and pointed with
quick finger--to the place where he had fallen.... He was pushing his
cart--so--and he looked up--quick--and his cart went--so!--and all his
fruit, and he was down--looking up--and the car went by, close.... Which
way?--He could not tell that--no.... He shut his eyes--his face grew
pale. He could not tell.

The street forked here--it might have been either way--by swerving
a little. And the police looked wise and took notes and reporters
photographed the spot and before night a crowd had gathered about
it, peering hopefully at the pavement where Alcibiades had lain,
and pointing with eager fingers to bits of peel--orange and
banana--scattered by the last passer-by, and gazing at dark stains on
the pavement--something that might be marks of blood--after ten weeks of
rain and mud and dust!

Achilles and the boy returned to the shop. "I want to go home," the boy
had said, as the car turned away, "I--go--home--with you, father." So
they had drawn up at the little fruit shop; and Yaxis in the door, his
teeth gleaming, had darted out to meet them, hovering about them and
helping his brother up the stairs and out to the verandah that ran
across the windows at the rear. Down below, in tin-can backyards of the
neighbours, old bottles and piles of broken lumber filled the place;
but along the edge of the verandah, boxes of earth had been set, and the
vines ran to the top, shutting out the glare of the brick walls opposite
and making a cool spot in the blank heat.

Alcibiades looked at the vines with happy eyes. "They grow," he said
so