Hat is the narrator and his mother’s neighbor in Port-of-Spain. At one point he saves the narrator from drowning, an experience that the narrator writes about in an essay for school. The pivotal ending scene of the story, when the narrator is injured and falls unconscious, occurs at Hat’s house, when he is tearing down his old latrine. Hat is a minor character is this story and does not actually appear directly in any of the scenes, but he is a more significant character in many of V. S. Naipaul’s other interconnected stories, serving as a mentor figure for the narrator.