{"id":"01KG6FVGFC67YHTW03PN0CW89W","cid":"bafkreickai3okrtjf43wztqi7a5yp7j5625e3n4wwuxx6nf7ib75ytocre","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1431,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:41:20.744Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG6FT59BXAZ3C5HRJ6SW8F58","start_line":1370,"text":"\"Pencey? It's not too bad. It's not paradise or anything, but it's as good as most\nschools. Some of the faculty are pretty conscientious.\"\n\"Ernest just adores it.\"\n\"I know he does,\" I said. Then I started shooting the old crap around a little bit.\n\"He adapts himself very well to things. He really does. I mean he really knows how to\nadapt himself.\"\n\"Do you think so?\" she asked me. She sounded interested as hell.\n\"Ernest? Sure,\" I said. Then I watched her take off her gloves. Boy, was she lousy\nwith rocks.\n\"I just broke a nail, getting out of a cab,\" she said. She looked up at me and sort of\nsmiled. She had a terrifically nice smile. She really did. Most people have hardly any\nsmile at all, or a lousy one. \"Ernest's father and I sometimes worry about him,\" she said.\n\"We sometimes feel he's not a terribly good mixer.\"\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\"Well. He's a very sensitive boy. He's really never been a terribly good mixer with\nother boys. Perhaps he takes things a little more seriously than he should at his age.\"\nSensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddam\ntoilet seat.\nI gave her a good look. She didn't look like any dope to me. She looked like she\nmight have a pretty damn good idea what a bastard she was the mother of. But you can't\nalways tell--with somebody's mother, I mean. Mothers are all slightly insane. The thing\nis, though, I liked old Morrow's mother. She was all right. \"Would you care for a\ncigarette?\" I asked her.\nShe looked all around. \"I don't believe this is a smoker, Rudolf,\" she said. Rudolf.\nThat killed me.\n\"That's all right. We can smoke till they start screaming at us,\" I said. She took a\ncigarette off me, and I gave her a light.\n\n<!-- [Page 31](arke:01KG6FHSG7MNMGAMHSCKZDTK78) -->\nShe looked nice, smoking. She inhaled and all, but she didn't wolf the smoke\ndown, the way most women around her age do. She had a lot of charm. She had quite a\nlot of sex appeal, too, if you really want to know.\nShe was looking at me sort of funny. I may be wrong but I believe your nose is\nbleeding, dear, she said, all of a sudden.\nI nodded and took out my handkerchief. \"I got hit with a snowball,\" I said. \"One\nof those very icy ones.\" I probably would've told her what really happened, but it\nwould've taken too long. I liked her, though. I was beginning to feel sort of sorry I'd told\nher my name was Rudolf Schmidt. \"Old Ernie,\" I said. \"He's one of the most popular\nboys at Pencey. Did you know that?\"\n\"No, I didn't.\"\nI nodded. \"It really took everybody quite a long time to get to know him. He's a\nfunny guy. A strange guy, in lots of ways--know what I mean? Like when I first met him.\nWhen I first met him, I thought he was kind of a snobbish person. That's what I thought.\nBut he isn't. He's just got this very original personality that takes you a little while to get\nto know him.\"\nOld Mrs. Morrow didn't say anything, but boy, you should've seen her. I had her\nglued to her seat. You take somebody's mother, all they want to hear about is what a hot-\nshot their son is.\nThen I really started chucking the old crap around. \"Did he tell you about the\nelections?\" I asked her. \"The class elections?\"\nShe shook her head. I had her in a trance, like. I really did.\n\"Well, a bunch of us wanted old Ernie to be president of the class. I mean he was\nthe unanimous choice. I mean he was the only boy that could really handle the job,\" I\nsaid--boy, was I chucking it. \"But this other boy--Harry Fencer--was elected. And the\nreason he was elected, the simple and obvious reason, was because Ernie wouldn't let us\nnominate him. Because he's so darn shy and modest and all. He refused. . . Boy, he's\nreally shy. You oughta make him try to get over that.\" I looked at her. \"Didn't he tell you\nabout it?\"\n\"No, he didn't.\"\nI nodded. \"That's Ernie. He wouldn't. That's the one fault with him--he's too shy\nand modest. You really oughta get him to try to relax occasionally.\"\nRight that minute, the conductor came around for old Mrs. Morrow's ticket, and it","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6FV13CKKKA4H6MPFSSH2H5","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FT59BXAZ3C5HRJ6SW8F58","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KFF1K6A8V452X8SQKY55DD16","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6FVGFAYD9EWKR182RZ2C16","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6FVGFCFJEVVJH590AX4ET0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:41:22.796Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:41:28.945Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}