"YOU KNOW how it is there early in the morning in Havana with the bums still asleep against the walls of the buildings; before even the ice wagons come by with ice for the bars? Well, we came across the square from the dock to the Pearl of San Francisco Café to get coffee and there was only one beggar awake in the square and he was getting a drink out of the fountain. But when we got inside the café and sat down, there were the three of them waiting for us.
"We sat down and one of them came over.
" 'Well,' he said.
" 'I can't do it,' I told him. 'I'd like to do it as a favor. But I told you last night I couldn't."
" 'It isn't that. I can't do it. That's all.'
"The two others had come over and they...