{"id":"01KG07A67G195MNZ9D9KEF0J7X","cid":"bafkreihlj72lpca6biqmjtpctwde6uhsar27dvzvppcmxa2xxpjykeswk4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2828,"extracted_at":"2026-01-27T17:16:18.881Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KFYTG9MG93RTB6YAW34V48XG","start_line":2782,"text":" 2663\tdiscussed it with her for a while. \"Well, I'm not too crazy about Romeo and Juliet,\" I said.\n 2664\t\"I mean I like them, but--I don't know. They get pretty annoying sometimes. I mean I felt\n 2665\tmuch sorrier when old Mercutio got killed than when Romeo and Juliet did. The think is,\n 2666\tI never liked Romeo too much after Mercutio gets stabbed by that other man--Juliet's\n 2667\tcousin--what's his name?\"\n 2668\t\"Tybalt.\"\n 2669\t\"That's right. Tybalt,\" I said--I always forget that guy's name. \"It was Romeo's\n 2670\tfault. I mean I liked him the best in the play, old Mercutio. I don't know. All those\n 2671\tMontagues and Capulets, they're all right--especially Juliet--but Mercutio, he was--it's\n 2672\thard to explain. He was very smart and entertaining and all. The thing is, it drives me\n 2673\tcrazy if somebody gets killed-- especially somebody very smart and entertaining and all--\n 2674\tand it's somebody else's fault. Romeo and Juliet, at least it was their own fault.\"\n 2675\t\"What school do you go to?\" she asked me. She probably wanted to get off the\n 2676\tsubject of Romeo and Juliet.\n 2677\tI told her Pencey, and she'd heard of it. She said it was a very good school. I let it\n 2678\tpass, though. Then the other one, the one that taught history and government, said they'd\n 2679\tbetter be running along. I took their check off them, but they wouldn't let me pay it. The\n 2680\tone with the glasses made me give it back to her.\n 2681\t\"You've been more than generous,\" she said. \"You're a very sweet boy.\" She\n 2682\tcertainly was nice. She reminded me a little bit of old Ernest Morrow's mother, the one I\n 2683\tmet on the train. When she smiled, mostly. \"We've enjoyed talking to you so much,\" she\n 2684\tsaid.\n 2685\tI said I'd enjoyed talking to them a lot, too. I meant it, too. I'd have enjoyed it\n 2686\teven more though, I think, if I hadn't been sort of afraid, the whole time I was talking to\n 2687\tthem, that they'd all of a sudden try to find out if I was a Catholic. Catholics are always\n 2688\ttrying to find out if you're a Catholic. It happens to me a lot, I know, partly because my\n\n\n 2689\tlast name is Irish, and most people of Irish descent are Catholics. As a matter of fact, my\n 2690\tfather was a Catholic once. He quit, though, when he married my mother. But Catholics\n 2691\tare always trying to find out if you're a Catholic even if they don't know your last name. I\n 2692\tknew this one Catholic boy, Louis Shaney, when I was at the Whooton School. He was\n 2693\tthe first boy I ever met there. He and I were sitting in the first two chairs outside the\n 2694\tgoddam infirmary, the day school opened, waiting for our physicals, and we sort of\n 2695\tstruck up this conversation about tennis. He was quite interested in tennis, and so was I.\n 2696\tHe told me he went to the Nationals at Forest Hills every summer, and I told him I did\n 2697\ttoo, and then we talked about certain hot-shot tennis players for quite a while. He knew\n 2698\tquite a lot about tennis, for a kid his age. He really did. Then, after a while, right in the\n 2699\tmiddle of the goddam conversation, he asked me, \"Did you happen to notice where the\n 2700\tCatholic church is in town, by any chance?\" The thing was, you could tell by the way he\n 2701\tasked me that he was trying to find out if I was a Catholic. He really was. Not that he was\n 2702\tprejudiced or anything, but he just wanted to know. He was enjoying the conversation\n 2703\tabout tennis and all, but you could tell he would've enjoyed it more if I was a Catholic\n 2704\tand all. That kind of stuff drives me crazy. I'm not saying it ruined our conversation or\n 2705\tanything--it didn't--but it sure as hell didn't do it any good. That's why I was glad those\n 2706\ttwo nuns didn't ask me if I was a Catholic. It wouldn't have spoiled the conversation if\n 2707\tthey had, but it would've been different, probably. I'm not saying I blame Catholics. I","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG072JK9JYJXQ6SAQ846BAXY","peer_label":"15","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-01-27T17:16:40.381Z","ts":"2026-01-27T17:16:40.381Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}