Page:Scarface.pdf/36

 think of more things he shouldn't do. It never occurred to him that they were endeavoring to implant in him their own code of ethics and honesty. Their crudeness of expression kept him from realizing that. Even if he had realized it, he wouldn't have accepted it. Because, while he loved his parents with the fierce, clan-love of the Latin, he did not respect their ideas. There were many logical reasons for that—their inability to learn English well, their inability to "keep step" with the times and country, their bewilderment—even after twenty years—at the great nation which they had chosen for their new home, the fact that even with his father working hard every day and his mother tending the little store they had been able to make only a bare living for the large family. So why should he accept their ideas on ethics? Where had those ideas gotten them? Tony didn't intend to live in squalor like this all his life; he meant to be a "big shot." Thus another decent home spawned another gangster, as inevitably as an oyster creates a pearl.

There were other factors, of course, that contributed strongly in making Tony a gangster. His attitude toward the law, for instance. His first contact with it had come at the age of six when,