{"id":"01KG6FVGFCFJEVVJH590AX4ET0","cid":"bafkreifrcj2kxhs5zf334fsfhtk4atfnxhksdwfue6ewxlxxcwrp25yr6y","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1479,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:41:20.744Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG6FT59BXAZ3C5HRJ6SW8F58","start_line":1425,"text":"nominate 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\ngave me a chance to quit shooting it. I'm glad I shot it for a while, though. You take a guy\nlike Morrow that's always snapping their towel at people's asses--really trying to hurt\nsomebody with it--they don't just stay a rat while they're a kid. They stay a rat their whole\nlife. But I'll bet, after all the crap I shot, Mrs. Morrow'll keep thinking of him now as this\nvery shy, modest guy that wouldn't let us nominate him for president. She might. You\ncan't tell. Mothers aren't too sharp about that stuff.\n\"Would you care for a cocktail?\" I asked her. I was feeling in the mood for one\nmyself. \"We can go in the club car. All right?\"\n\"Dear, are you allowed to order drinks?\" she asked me. Not snotty, though. She\nwas too charming and all to be snotty.\n\"Well, no, not exactly, but I can usually get them on account of my heighth,\" I\nsaid. \"And I have quite a bit of gray hair.\" I turned sideways and showed her my gray\n\n\nhair. It fascinated hell out of her. \"C'mon, join me, why don't you?\" I said. I'd've enjoyed\nhaving her.\n\"I really don't think I'd better. Thank you so much, though, dear,\" she said.\n\"Anyway, the club car's most likely closed. It's quite late, you know.\" She was right. I'd\nforgotten all about what time it was.\nThen she looked at me and asked me what I was afraid she was going to ask me.\n\"Ernest wrote that he'd be home on Wednesday, that Christmas vacation would start on\nWednesday,\" she said. \"I hope you weren't called home suddenly because of illness in the\nfamily.\" She really looked worried about it. She wasn't just being nosy, you could tell.\n\"No, everybody's fine at home,\" I said. \"It's me. I have to have this operation.\"\n\"Oh! I'm so sorry,\" she said. She really was, too. I was right away sorry I'd said it,\nbut it was too late.\n\"It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.\"\n\"Oh, no!\" She put her hand up to her mouth and all. \"Oh, I'll be all right and\neverything! It's right near the outside. And it's a very tiny one. They can take it out in\nabout two minutes.\"\nThen I started reading this timetable I had in my pocket. Just to stop lying. Once I\nget started, I can go on for hours if I feel like it. No kidding. Hours.\nWe didn't talk too much after that. She started reading this Vogue she had with\nher, and I looked out the window for a while. She got off at Newark. She wished me a lot\nof luck with the operation and all. She kept calling me Rudolf. Then she invited me to\nvisit Ernie during the summer, at Gloucester, Massachusetts. She said their house was\nright on the beach, and they had a tennis court and all, but I just thanked her and told her I\nwas going to South America with my grandmother. Which was really a hot one, because\nmy grandmother hardly ever even goes out of the house, except maybe to go to a goddam\nmatinee or something. But I wouldn't visit that sonuvabitch Morrow for all the dough in\nthe world, even if I was desperate.\n9\nThe first thing I did when I got off at Penn Station, I went into this phone booth. I\nfelt like giving somebody a buzz. I left my bags right outside the booth so that I could\nwatch them, but as soon as I was inside, I couldn't think of anybody to call up. My\nbrother D.B. was in Hollywood. My kid sister Phoebe goes to bed around nine o'clock--\nso I couldn't call her up. She wouldn't've cared if I'd woke her up, but the trouble was, she\nwouldn't've been the one that answered the phone. My parents would be the ones. So that","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6FV13CKKKA4H6MPFSSH2H5","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FT59BXAZ3C5HRJ6SW8F58","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KFF1K6A8V452X8SQKY55DD16","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6FVGFC67YHTW03PN0CW89W","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6FVGFEG5YY7Z8QEMV2R9JT","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:41:22.796Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:41:29.046Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}