“Santiago,”the boy said to him as they climbed the bank from where the skiff was hauled up.“I could go with you again.We've made some money.”
“If you were my boy I'd take you out and gamble,”he said.“But you are your father's and your mother's and you are in a lucky boat.”
“No,”the boy said.“But I will see something that he cannot see such as a bird working and get him to come out after dolphin.”
“No.I will make it later on.Or I may eat the rice cold.”
“Two,”the old man agreed.“ You didn't steal them?”
“Keep warm old man,”the boy said.“ Remember we are in September.”
“I go now for the sardines,”the boy said.
They sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of the old man and he was not angry.Others,of the older fishermen,looked at him and were sad.But they did not show it and they spoke politely about the current and the depths they had drifted their lines at and the steady good weather and of what they had seen.The successful fishermen of that day were already in and had butchered their marlin out and carried them laid full across two planks,with two men staggering at the end of each plank,to the fish house where they waited for the ice truck to carry them to the market in Havana.Those who had caught sharks had taken them to the shark factory on the other side of the cove where they were hoisted on a block and tackle,their livers removed, their fins cut off and their hides skinned out and their flesh cut into strips for salting.