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days.
    After dinner Toby showed Jim his new stamp album. He started to explain the history of each stamp he had placed in the album—both
     United States and foreign—and got so enthusiastic about it that Johnny thought for sure that Toby would spend half the night
     at it unless he was stopped.
    “Okay, okay, Toby,” he said. “What do you want to do, turn Jim into a stamp collector?”
    “I was just explaining…” began Toby.
    “Sure you were. But maybe Jim isn't as nuts about stamps as you are.”
    Jim grinned. “That's okay. Don't you guys go fighting about it.”
    “Let's show him our aquarium,” suggested Johnny.
    The brothers showed Jim their aquarium. It was a twenty-gallon tank, explained Toby, who took the job of describing it and
     the fish in it as if they belonged only to him. Johnny stood back silently, feeling somewhat out of the picture. The aquarium
     was here before he had come. Even though Dad had said that it was his as much as Toby's, Toby still seemed to think it was
     only his.
    “See that pair there?” Toby pointed at two silver-spangled fish with long blue dorsal and gold pectoral fins. “They're called
     severums. And those pretty purple ones are guppies.”
    “What do they eat?” asked Jim.
    “Fish food,” said Toby.
    “Frozen shrimp,” explained Johnny specifically. “We keep it in the refrigerator. There's also fish food in those boxes under
     the aquarium.”
    Jim watched the fish swimming around inside the tank for a long time. Now and then a fish chased its mate, then stopped and
     nibbled at a green plant growing from the base of tiny blue and red stones. Johnny too, enjoyed watching them. The beautiful
     angel fish with their long fins, the black-striped tiger barbs, the homely whiskered catfish lying quietly on the bottom.
     They swam slowly, then darted swiftly; they romped like children.
    “They're really pretty,” said Jim finally. “I've never seen tropical fish before.”
    At eight o'clock Jim said he'd better go home. His pop was probably home by now, waiting for him.
    “May I go with him, Ma?” asked Johnny.
    “Okay. But don't stay long. It's getting late."
    Jim's house was on a country road, a ten-minute walk from Johnny's house. The wind was blowing hard, singing around Johnny's
     ears and whipping snow against his face. He remembered the night he had fallen in front of the moving snowplow because of
     Jim's throwing snowballs at him. Now suddenly they were friends.
    Mr. Sain wasn't home. “Hell be home soon,” said Jim. “He's probably visiting some friend of his.”
    “Want me to stay awhile?” asked Johnny. “Till your father comes home?”
    Jim shrugged. “Sure.”
    They took off their boots in the kitchen, hung up their coats and hats, then sat at the kitchen table. The room was large,
     the stove was an old range, the wallpaper old and drab.
    “Just a second,” said Jim. He hurried out of the room and Johnny heard him climbing stairs. There was an ashtray on the middle
     of the table, partly smoked cigarettes in it. Johnny remembered the butt he had picked up when he and Toby had gone tobogganing.
     He went to his coat and unzipped the pocket. There was the butt. He took it out just as Jim returned, carrying several large
     sheets of paper.
    “I did these,” he said, placing the pile in front of Johnny.
    They were pencil drawings of ships—passenger ships, clippers, and sailboats. There were also drawings of the sea—the high
     waves, the rockbound coast with the waves lashing furiously against it, lighthouses, and men harpooning a whale.
    “Hey, they're terrif,” exclaimed Johnny. “Did you really do these?”
    Jim nodded proudly. “I like anything to dowith the sea. I'd like to be a sailor when I get older.”
    He saw the butt in Johnny's hand and his eyebrows arched. “Hey, do you smoke?” he asked curiously.
    “Used to. Do you?”
    “No. Those butts are my father's. Go ahead. Smoke if you want to. I won't squeal.”
    Johnny