“That's easy. I can always borrow two dollars and a half.”
“You bought me a beer,”the old man said.“You are already a man.”
“He is almost blind.”
“The month when the great fish come,”the old man said.“ Anyone can be a fisherman in May.”
“Yes. I have yesterday's paper and I will read the baseball.”
“I think perhaps I can too.But I try not to borrow.First you borrow.Then you beg.”
“How old was I when you first took me in a boat?”
“Yes,”the old man said.He was holding his glass and thinking of many years ago.
“Santiago,”the boy said.
“But remember how you went eighty-seven days without fish and then we caught big ones every day for three weeks.”“I remember,”the old man said,“I know you did not leave me because you doubted.”
“Be careful or you will fear even the Reds of Cincinnati and the White Sox of Chicago.”
“Can you really remember that or did I just tell it to you?”
“I go now for the sardines,”the boy said.
“Let us take the stuff home,”the boy said.“ So I can get the cast net and go after the sardines.”
“The Yankees cannot lose.”
“I would like to go.If I cannot fish with you,I would like to serve in some way.”
When the wind was in the east a smell came across the harbor from the shark factory;but today there was only the faint edge of the odor because the wind had backed into the north and then dropped off and it was pleasant and sunny on the Terrace.