{"id":"01KG076GRCN3HE1CVHP7RWD874","cid":"bafkreihylxx6dlmusd3fichypmo7ablt7rsfpoj7rmzmywsdcuae7am4fu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1444,"extracted_at":"2026-01-27T17:14:39.506Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KFYTG9MG93RTB6YAW34V48XG","start_line":1390,"text":"  1331\talways tell--with somebody's mother, I mean. Mothers are all slightly insane. The thing\n  1332\tis, though, I liked old Morrow's mother. She was all right. \"Would you care for a\n  1333\tcigarette?\" I asked her.\n  1334\tShe looked all around. \"I don't believe this is a smoker, Rudolf,\" she said. Rudolf.\n  1335\tThat killed me.\n  1336\t\"That's all right. We can smoke till they start screaming at us,\" I said. She took a\n  1337\tcigarette off me, and I gave her a light.\n\n<!-- [Page 31](arke:01KFYTAC84CDNBDJACG063AG6E) -->\n  1338\tShe looked nice, smoking. She inhaled and all, but she didn't wolf the smoke\n  1339\tdown, the way most women around her age do. She had a lot of charm. She had quite a\n  1340\tlot of sex appeal, too, if you really want to know.\n  1341\tShe was looking at me sort of funny. I may be wrong but I believe your nose is\n  1342\tbleeding, dear, she said, all of a sudden.\n  1343\tI nodded and took out my handkerchief. \"I got hit with a snowball,\" I said. \"One\n  1344\tof those very icy ones.\" I probably would've told her what really happened, but it\n  1345\twould've taken too long. I liked her, though. I was beginning to feel sort of sorry I'd told\n  1346\ther my name was Rudolf Schmidt. \"Old Ernie,\" I said. \"He's one of the most popular\n  1347\tboys at Pencey. Did you know that?\"\n  1348\t\"No, I didn't.\"\n  1349\tI nodded. \"It really took everybody quite a long time to get to know him. He's a\n  1350\tfunny guy. A strange guy, in lots of ways--know what I mean? Like when I first met him.\n  1351\tWhen I first met him, I thought he was kind of a snobbish person. That's what I thought.\n  1352\tBut he isn't. He's just got this very original personality that takes you a little while to get\n  1353\tto know him.\"\n  1354\tOld Mrs. Morrow didn't say anything, but boy, you should've seen her. I had her\n  1355\tglued to her seat. You take somebody's mother, all they want to hear about is what a hot-\n  1356\tshot their son is.\n  1357\tThen I really started chucking the old crap around. \"Did he tell you about the\n  1358\telections?\" I asked her. \"The class elections?\"\n  1359\tShe shook her head. I had her in a trance, like. I really did.\n  1360\t\"Well, a bunch of us wanted old Ernie to be president of the class. I mean he was\n  1361\tthe unanimous choice. I mean he was the only boy that could really handle the job,\" I\n  1362\tsaid--boy, was I chucking it. \"But this other boy--Harry Fencer--was elected. And the\n  1363\treason he was elected, the simple and obvious reason, was because Ernie wouldn't let us\n  1364\tnominate him. Because he's so darn shy and modest and all. He refused. . . Boy, he's\n  1365\treally shy. You oughta make him try to get over that.\" I looked at her. \"Didn't he tell you\n  1366\tabout it?\"\n  1367\t\"No, he didn't.\"\n  1368\tI nodded. \"That's Ernie. He wouldn't. That's the one fault with him--he's too shy\n  1369\tand modest. You really oughta get him to try to relax occasionally.\"\n  1370\tRight that minute, the conductor came around for old Mrs. Morrow's ticket, and it\n  1371\tgave me a chance to quit shooting it. I'm glad I shot it for a while, though. You take a guy\n  1372\tlike Morrow that's always snapping their towel at people's asses--really trying to hurt\n  1373\tsomebody with it--they don't just stay a rat while they're a kid. They stay a rat their whole\n  1374\tlife. But I'll bet, after all the crap I shot, Mrs. Morrow'll keep thinking of him now as this\n  1375\tvery shy, modest guy that wouldn't let us nominate him for president. She might. You\n  1376\tcan't tell. Mothers aren't too sharp about that stuff.\n  1377\t\"Would you care for a cocktail?\" I asked her. I was feeling in the mood for one\n  1378\tmyself. \"We can go in the club car. All right?\"\n  1379\t\"Dear, are you allowed to order drinks?\" she asked me. Not snotty, though. She\n  1380\twas too charming and all to be snotty.\n  1381\t\"Well, no, not exactly, but I can usually get them on account of my heighth,\" I\n  1382\tsaid. \"And I have quite a bit of gray hair.\" I turned sideways and showed her my gray\n","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG072GGPGKVJA9S436CAPW13","peer_label":"Chapter 8","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-01-27T17:14:40.050Z","ts":"2026-01-27T17:14:40.050Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}