“Perhaps he is a man.”
“Certainly he is. Dio mio, the boy at least is a Neapolitan.”
“No, he isn’t.”
“He is not?”
“He’s a Sicilian.”
“How do you know?”
“I was here the other day when he was diving for frutti di mare.”
“I have seen him at the Mergellina ever since he was a child.”
“He says he is a Sicilian.”
“Boys like that say anything if they can get something by it. Perhaps he thought you liked the Sicilians better than the Neapolitans. But anyhow—Sicilian or Neapolitan, it is all one! He is a Southerner, and at fifteen a Southerner is already a man. I was.”