Tales of the Unexpected

came bouncing along the side of the pool, looking at the people and the chairs.
    He stopped beside me and smiled, showing two rows of very small, uneven teeth, slightly tarnished. I smiled back.
    ‘Excuse pleess, but may I sit here?’
    ‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘Go ahead.’
    He bobbed around to the back of the chair and inspected it for safety, then he sat down and crossed his legs. His white buckskin shoes had little holes punched all over them for ventilation.
    ‘A fine evening,’ he said. ‘They are all evenings fine here in Jamaica.’ I couldn’t tell if the accent were Italian or Spanish, but I felt fairly sure he was some sort of a South American. And old too, when you saw him close. Probably around sixty-eight or seventy.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It is wonderful here, isn’t it.’
    ‘And who, might I ask, are all dese? Dese is no hotel people.’ He was pointing at the bathers in the pool.
    ‘I think they’re American sailors,’ I told him. ‘They’re Americans who are learning to be sailors.’
    ‘Of course dey are Americans. Who else in de world is going to make as much noise as dat? You are not American no?’
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘I am not.’
    Suddenly one of the American cadets was standing in front of us. He was dripping wet from the pool and one of the English girls was standing there with him.
    ‘Are these chairs taken?’ he said.
    ‘No,’ I answered.
    ‘Mind if I sit down?’
    ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘Thanks,’ he said. He had a towel in his hand and when he sat down he unrolled it and produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He offered the cigarettes to the girl and she refused; then he offered them to me and I took one. The little man said, ‘Tank you, no, but I tink I have a cigar.’ He pulled out a crocodile case and got himself a cigar, then he produced a knife which had a small scissors in it and he snipped the end off the cigar.
    ‘Here, let me give you a light.’ The American boy held up his lighter.
    ‘Dat will not work in dis wind.’
    ‘Sure it’ll work. It always works.’
    The little man removed his unlighted cigar from his mouth, cocked his head on one side and looked at the boy.
    ‘
All
-ways?’ he said slowly.
    ‘Sure, it never fails. Not with me anyway.’
    The little man’s head was still cocked over on one side and he was still watching the boy. ‘Well, well. So you say dis famous lighter it never fails. Iss dat you say?’
    ‘Sure,’ the boy said. ‘That’s right.’ He was about nineteen or twenty with a long freckled face and a rather sharp birdlike nose. His chest was not very sunburned and there were freckles there too, and a few wisps of pale-reddish hair. He was holding the lighter in his right hand, ready to flip the wheel. ‘It never fails,’ he said, smiling now because he was purposely exaggerating his little boast. ‘I promise you it never fails.’
    ‘One momint, pleess.’ The hand that held the cigar came up high, palm outward, as though it were stopping traffic. ‘Now juss one momint.’ He had a curious soft, toneless voice and he kept looking at the boy all the time.
    ‘Shall we not perhaps make a little bet on dat?’ He smiled at the boy. ‘Shall we not make a little bet on whether your lighter lights?’
    ‘Sure, I’ll bet,’ the boy said. ‘Why not?’
    ‘You like to bet?’
    ‘Sure, I’ll always bet.’
    The man paused and examined his cigar, and I must say I didn’t much like the way he was behaving. It seemed he was already trying to make something out of this, and to embarrass the boy, and at the same time I had the feeling he was relishing a private little secret all his own.
    He looked up again at the boy and said slowly, ‘I like to bet, too. Why we don’t have a good bet on dis ting? A good big bet.’
    ‘Now wait a minute,’ the boy said. ‘I can’t do that. But I’ll bet you a quarter. I’ll even bet you a dollar, or whatever it is over here – some shillings, I guess.’
    The little man waved his hand again. ‘Listen to me. Now we have some fun. We make a bet. Den we got up to my room here in de hotel where iss no wind and I bet you you cannot light dis famous lighter of yours ten times running without missing once.’
    ‘I’ll bet I can,’ the boy said.
    ‘All right. Good. We make a bet, yes?’
    ‘Sure, I’ll bet you a buck.’
    ‘No, no. I make you a very good bet. I am rich man and I am sporting man also. Listen to me. Outside de hotel iss my car. Iss very fine car. American