166 ALBACORA 



"Well, I don't feel unhappy." I felt like a crone, and 

 with the dirt of my day's labor on me, I felt like some- 

 one in the Foreign Legion, too. But I definitely did not 

 feel unhappy. 



Back at the Hotel Prat, Jo Manning came in with the 

 soap right after dinner. "It's still unopened," she said, 

 "and unused." 



"Well, I won't use it then," I said. "The way we've 

 been going that soap will probably keep passing from 

 hand to hand until the expedition is over." 



"I don't think so," Jo said. "I think the one you 

 caught today will let you have the soap for keeps." 



I had caught a big one, and the fight had been clean 

 and hard and good. But there was a bigger albacora 

 swimming somewhere in the Humboldt, and what I had 

 accomplished was no more than a preliminary to the 

 greater struggle. While I lay back in my tub with the 

 sweet-smelling soap as a prize, Bosco still swam free off 

 the Pacific Coast. 



