Mediterranean Nights (20 page)

Had I written the story after my visit I should certainly not have made the Greek workman in it such a villainous character. There are, of course, black sheep in every race, and it is stupid to pretend otherwise. That is why it is particularly silly for people to write to authors, as they sometimes do, expressing the strongest resentment or a personal grievance that one has portrayed one of their countrymen as the villain in a book. All fiction characters are imaginary, anyhow, and to paint a foreigner, or an Englishman for that matter, as an unscrupulous blackguard is no reflection whatever on his race.

But this is a special case. Among all the countries in which I have travelled I have found the Greeks unique in their attitude to tourists—and this story concerns tourists. The Greeks are so proud of their lovely country and its magnificent contribution to civilisation that their greatest joy is to show it to their visitors. They even refuse to take tolls from tourists who use their roads, and the Greek guides bring their charges presents of flowers, fruit, and wine for which they will take no payment. Therefore it is more than usually unlikely that a Greek workman would have sought to prey on foreigners as this one did in the tale.

Athens always reminds me of an amusing episode that occurred when I was there. The First Secretary of our Legation received my wife and myself very kindly, and one night during the Carnival he and his wife took us out to see the
fun in a popular restaurant, together with the son of the Court Chamberlain.

Great merriment prevailed, and there was much throwing of paper streamers together with—a thing that I have never seen elsewhere—wax eggs of many colours containing confetti, which broke quite harmlessly upon one's head. I'm sure the number of those eggs we used cost our host far more than the dinner.

Anyhow, about one in the morning, although the fun was still at its height, our party got up to leave. Immediately the band stopped the dance tune it was playing and broke into the British National Anthem, while every soul in the place got to their feet and cheered as though they meant to lift the roof off.

As the only woman guest my wife went out first, bowing her acknowledgments for the unexpected courtesy to right and left, while the rest of us, looking a little self-conscious, trailed after her.

When we were outside I said to my host: ‘All the Greeks we've met have been charming to us, but I didn't realise that they are so fond of the English that they give them public ovations.'

‘They don't.' he replied. ‘At least, I've never known them do so before, although we're certainly very popular. I was a little startled myself, and I don't quite understand it.'

Next morning we had the explanation. Princess Mary had arrived the previous afternoon on a visit to King George of Greece. My wife is not the least like Princess Mary to look at, but about the same age, and seeing her seated between a British diplomat and the son of the Court Chamberlain, the crowd in the restaurant had mistaken her for the Princess.

It is nice to think, though, that quite a number of Greeks must have gone home that night with the happy illusion that they had been hit in the eye by a wax egg sent with unerring aim by the King of England's sister.

ATHENIAN GOLD

‘O
F COURSE
,' I remarked casually, ‘there is no doubt that there
are
cases in which appropriating other people's money is justified.'

‘What do you mean?' asked the girl with the blue eyes.

I smiled my very nicest smile as I answered her question. It had taken no little skill on my part to manœuvre her a little way away from the rest of the party, which was being shown over the Acropolis.

‘Didn't you know?'—with an airy gesture I included the Colonnade of the Parthenon, the Temple of Niki, and the Carytides of the Erechtheion—‘all these were built with stolen money.'

She shook her charming head. ‘The guide just said that they were built by Pericles—wasn't he the King of Athens in those days?'

I laughed. ‘Lord Mayor would be nearer the mark; he pinched all the money to build these wonderful places out of the rates—he would have got seven years for embezzlement in these days; as it was, there was no end of a rumpus, but he had finished the job before they found him out.'

She favoured me with a most delicious smile, so I was encouraged to go on. ‘Think of all the millions we pay in rates every year in London—ten bob in the pound, and in Poplar it got to twenty-two and sixpence before someone put a stop to it—and what have we to show for it? Not a single thing. Old Pericles wanted to make his city beautiful, and the other aldermen were just about as stuffy and as narrow as ours are today, so he purloined the cash and left us these lovely things to marvel at.'

‘That
is
interesting,' she said.

By this time we had dropped quite a way behind the others, and I did not mean that we should catch them up for a bit, if it was in my power to prevent it. I had seen her the night before in the lounge, so I knew she was staying in the same hotel. Now was my golden opportunity to ‘get acquainted', as the Americans say.

I racked my brain for any odd bits of information about the Greeks that might have stuck there. I didn't know much,
but it was more than she did, and enough, anyhow, to retain her interest until we could get on to the safer ground of holidays in general, and where she liked dancing best in London.

The ice was nicely broken by the time we were walking down the giant staircase of the Prophylaer. Our motor-coach was waiting some little distance from the bottom, and the people were climbing in. A stout woman called in a querulous voice: ‘Do come along, Venice, dear,' and the girl at my side hurried forward.

‘So her name is Venice—what a lovely name,' I thought, and how splendidly it suited her. Those eyes—the blue of the Adriatic was never more dazzling, and the dark curling hair under the wide-brimmed hat—Venetian night! Of course we had to separate and take our respective seats in the big coach. I cursed the stupid rhapsodies of the little woman in the giglamps who sat on one side of me and the lunatic American who occupied the other. He said he didn't reckon the Ar-cropolis was anything to go bats about—the Capitol in Washington had it beat by a long sight. They got involved in a heated argument with myself as a kind of no-man's land: how I wished they would both shut up! I wanted peace and quiet to think about Venice—I wanted to think about Venice lots and lots.

On the way back to the hotel we pulled up at the ‘Tower of the Winds'. I lost not a moment. Directly the guide began his discourse I shook off the woman with the specs, and edged round to where Venice was standing. To my disgust I found she was talking to a little square, red-faced chap. I had seen him with her in the lounge the night before, so I had to bide my time.

The guide moved on; like a flock of sheep the party followed, I seized my chance. ‘Have you seen the tombs?' I said.

‘Are there any here?' she asked, surprised.

‘Rather,' I assured her. The Tower was set in a small garden which boasted only a few dwarf acacias, sprouting among the lumps of fallen stone. I pointed to the far end. ‘They're over there.'

The red-faced man had drifted forward with the rest of the gaping crowd; Venice walked beside me over the dusty grass.
We passed through a ring of broken columns, and I glanced quickly from side to side, fervently praying that I might find something which I could tell her was a tomb.

‘Those are the tombs,' I said, with a sigh of relief, as I pointed in the direction of some cave-like holes with iron gratings across, which I had spotted in the garden wall.

‘How very interesting.' Venice smiled politely, but there was a sweet merriment in her blue eyes. I could see she didn't believe me, and she went on quietly: ‘Do you know, I had an idea that the Athenians buried their dead outside the city! In fact, we went to see the street of tombs yesterday afternoon.'

‘Ah, those are very special ones,' I answered quickly, and I hastened to change the subject. ‘I wonder what those vandals are going to put up on the other side of the wall?'

‘It seems a sin to build anything here, doesn't it?' she agreed. ‘Look, they've even cut a trench through into the garden.'

We strolled over to the trench—half a dozen dusty Greek labourers were digging in the far end of it; farther off a crowd of them were struggling with an enormous boiler. They were trying to get it into its place amongst the already completed cement foundations.

A little fat man in an absurd bowler hat stood on a pile of masonry giving instructions. We stood watching for a moment.

Just as we were about to turn away, Venice prodded the side of the trench with the point of her parasol.

‘What's that?' she said.

I looked, and the dull gleam of metal caught my eye. ‘By Jove,' I. exclaimed, ‘I believe you've had a find!' I stooped quickly and picked it up from the place where it rested on the lip of a small hole opened up by the earth being cut away. It was a gold coin, dull with the grime of centuries, but as I rubbed it with my thumb it shone! It was gold, right enough—gold never tarnishes.

‘What fun!' she cried. ‘Do let me look.'

I passed it to her. I think I was even happier than she was—it only needed a little thing like that for us to become really friendly.

‘I wonder if there are any more in that hole?' I said suddenly.
‘Some old fellow may have buried a hoard there ages ago.'

‘Do see—we'll go shares if there are,' exclaimed Venice, the generous darling.

I was just going to stoop down when I caught sight of one of the Greek labourers watching me. ‘Hide it!' I said. ‘Quickly.'

She slipped it into her palm and gave me a puzzled look. ‘Why?' she asked.

‘Got to be careful,' I explained; ‘there's sure to be some rotten law about all treasure trove being the property of the State in a place like this, and that chap's got his eye on us—times have changed since Lord Elgin got away with the Parthenon marbles.'

‘Did he?' she laughed. ‘How did he do that?'

‘The Parthenon was almost perfect till two hundred years ago, then the fool Turks used it to store gunpowder in. One fine night it blew up, and most of the figures tumbled off in bits and pieces. Old Elgin came along a hundred years later and picked up the fragments. Not content with that, he pinched most of the figures that were still intact on the frieze; they're in a special room at the British Museum today.'

‘Of course; the famous Elgin Marbles; yes, I've seen them, but however did he get them away?'

I had one eye on the Greek, but he was still watching us. ‘He just walked off with them,' I answered. ‘You could do that sort of thing in those days; he jolly nearly lost the lot, though. They were so heavy that the ship he chartered to bring them home sank in the harbour, here; they were several years at the bottom of the sea, too, before he could get them up!'

‘I wish that workman would get on with his job,' she said impatiently. ‘I'm dying to see if there are any more coins in that hole.'

‘ 'Ot, ain't it, Guv'nor?'

I looked up quickly; the little man in the bowler hat had approached us along the wall. He was mopping his round head with a red-and-white spotted handkerchief. I suppose I looked surprised. One hardly expects to be addressed in broad Cockney by the foreman of a gang of labourers in Athens!

‘You're right,' I said; ‘it can't be much fun working in this heat, it's bad enough just rushing from place to place seeing things.' And in fact the heat was grilling—the sun streamed down from a cloudless sky, so that the glare of it on the white stones pained one's eyes.

‘Wish I was back in Blighty,' he went on. ‘Steak and onions an' a pint o' bitter aside the fire on a foggy dye—that's wot I'd like ter see.'

‘What are you doing in Athens?' I asked.

‘Sent art by the firm, I was,' he grumbled. ‘Said it 'ud be a six weeks' job, they did, an' it's darn near six munfs—these here Greeks 'as a hidea that work's bad fer their 'ealth, I reckon. I wouldn't stick it but what it's decent pay.'

‘What sort of work are you doing?' Venice inquired.

‘Bilers,' he replied. ‘Bilers, Miss, them's my line; these 'ere dagoes don't know nuffin' abart bilers, an' we 'as to teach 'em. It ain't arf a job, too. They jest stares at yer wiv their big, black eyes and chews their beastly garlic—they smells somepin 'orrid.'

I was quite sorry for the little man, but I wished he would go away. I was terribly anxious to investigate our hole.

‘Ain't seen no golden coins abart, 'ave yer?' he asked suddenly.

I quickly denied all knowledge of our find. Venice was smiling sweetly in the direction of the party who were walking across the garden towards us; she gave the impression that she had not heard the question.

‘Well, if yer ain't, yer ain't; I was only wonderin',' remarked the little Cockney with a grin; ‘but if you does—me nime's Tubby 'Arris—yer might remember that if yer gits inter any trouble!'

‘Thanks,' I said a little vaguely. I didn't see any reason to suppose that we should get into any trouble, and I didn't quite see how Mr. Harris would help us if we did!

‘So long, Guv'nor, and good mornin' ter yer, Miss'; he touched his hat politely as we turned to go. ‘It's a reel treat ter 'ear a Christian voice in this 'ere plice.'

The party had come up now, and our chance had gone to rummage in that tantalising hole. Venice turned away from the trench with a little look of disappointment, but I leant towards her and whispered: ‘We'll come back later.'

She brightened at once. ‘Yes, let's—after dinner this evening. Quick! What's your name?—I'd better introduce you to Mother.'

‘Tony Burbridge,' I sighed, as I braced myself. Why is it that all lovely girls are cursed with mothers?