With the exception of George Hemingway, the men were also true to type. They wore white trousers, a handkerchief of various hues round their necks and, of course, the inevitable doe-skin shoes.
My eyes swept over the group and came to rest on George. He immediately attracted my attention, and I wondered who he was. His personality was so strong that he made the others seem mere paintings on the wall. He was tall, with big powerful shoulders, tapering away to a small waist and very long legs. You could see at a glance how much he enjoyed the good things in life, and his enormous vitality for absorbing them.
I noticed that he paid for all the drinks out of a well-worn wallet. It amused me to watch these people and to see the clever way the women out-manoeuvred one another to be the centre of attraction.
After a while they all got through with their drinks and decided to go out for a bathe. George told them to go on as he’d left his costume in his room. He stood with a big, humorous grin on his bronzed face watching them troop out, and then turned to the elevator. As he turned he caught my eye, and realizing that I had been watching him for sometime he came over.
“I’m Hemingway,” he said. “Are you all by yourself?”
I explained that it was of my own choosing, and went on to tell him about the deep-sea fishing. His eyes lit up at the mention of marlin. “What sort of sport have you had?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I find it mighty slow,” I said ruefully. “I haven’t seen anything that looks like a big fish since I’ve been here.”
Hemingway looked rather guiltily out of the big window at the group running down to the bathing-pool. “Listen, buddy,” he said, “how about you and me having a go tomorrow morning early? Believe it or not, there’s no one interested in fishing in my party, and I’ve been itching to get my hands on a rod. What do you say?”
I readily agreed. By now I had seen the error in not having a companion on this trip. I had imagined that I should have been so busy fishing that another person would have only been in the way.
Well, to cut a long story short, we had a day’s fishing which will remain long in my memory. George seemed to know where to find the fish, and Joppy, who came with us, was almost as excited as I.