He was paid half up front. That is the entire explanation and I would ask you to sit with it a moment.
Forty years on the bottom of Foggy Harbor and the man has not once stopped working, because the other half was payable on delivery and the fellow who owed it is himself now a permanent resident of the same harbor, four berths over.
There is a system down there. It is not a good system. It is, however, a system, and the copper helmet comes up out of the water every so often lit like a lamp, still owed.
The neighbors turn out to watch. Big lads, wet, with the eyes. They think he is magnificent. They think he has PRINCIPLES.
They have been asking him to supper for decades. He has never once answered.
