The woman replied in a high voice.
“Shut up, little pimp!”
To which the boy shouted, “How will your favorite cat look when I eat him to-morrow night?”
The woman screamed and ran back to her stall.
Rio looked at his sandwich suspiciously, then dropped it guardedly where the child could not see.
They went back to the ship the same way they had come. On the edge of the town by the road to the sea, the boy tugged at Rio. Nearby, an hibiscus bush was in full bloom. Marius pointed to it. The red disks on his cheeks glowed in the twilight. Fastening his trousers about his slim, bare ankles, he leaped into the air and caught one blossom. Then he gave Rio a shy, sweet glance and gravely hung the flower behind his ear....
Rio was carrying the little whip when they walked onto the docks. He looked down at the child beside him.
“Sir,” he said to the boy, “do you think I could catch sir tarantula, sir?”
He didn’t know whether Marius was crying, for his own eyes were wet. But he did know that a child of untranslatable beauty, with a mouth like a bow and a heart which he knew was indisputedly his, was standing quite still before him. He lifted the boy—kissed him on the mouth, and headed for his ship, half stumbling.