The Godfather by Mario Puzo: Book I

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Don Corleone greeted the baker with an embrace. They had played together as children in Italy and had grown up in friendship. Every Easter freshly baked clotted-cheese and wheat-germ pies, their crusts yolk-gold, big round as truck wheels, arrived at Don Corleone's home. On Christmas, on family birthdays, rich creamy pastries proclaimed the Nazorines' respect.

And all through the years, lean and fat, Nazorine cheerfully paid his dues to the bakery union organized by the Don in his salad days. Never asking for a favor in return except for the chance to buy black-market OPA sugar coupons during the war.

Now the time had come for the baker to claim his rights as a loyal friend, and Don Corleone look forward with great pleasure to granting his request.

He gave the baker a Di Nobili cigar and a glass of yellow Strega and put his hand on the man's shoulder to urge him on.

That was the mark of the Don's humanity.

He knew from bitter experience what courage it took to ask a favor from a fellow man.

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His name was Anthony Coppola and he was the son of a man Don Corleone had worked with in the railroad yards in his youth. Coppola needed five hundred dollars to open a pizzeria; For a deposit on fixtures and the special oven. For reasons not gone into, credits was not available. The Don reached into his pocket and took out a roll of bills.

It was not quite enough. He grimaced and said to Tom Hagen, "Loan me a hundred dollars, I'll pay you back Monday when I go to the bank".

The supplicant protested that four hundred dollar would be ample, but Don Corleone patted his shoulder, saying, apologetically, "This fancy wedding left me a little short of cash".

He took the money Hagen extended to him and gave it to Anthony Coppola with his own roll of bills.

Hagen watched with quiet admiration.

The Don always taught that when a man was generous, he must show the generosity as personal. How flattering to Anthony Coppola that a man like the Don would borrow to loan him money. Not that Coppola did not know the Don was a millionaire but how many millionaires let themselves be put to even a small inconvenience by a poor friend?

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