Properties
- end_line
- 1472
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:14:39.506Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1438
- text
- 1377 "Would you care for a cocktail?" I asked her. I was feeling in the mood for one
1378 myself. "We can go in the club car. All right?"
1379 "Dear, are you allowed to order drinks?" she asked me. Not snotty, though. She
1380 was too charming and all to be snotty.
1381 "Well, no, not exactly, but I can usually get them on account of my heighth," I
1382 said. "And I have quite a bit of gray hair." I turned sideways and showed her my gray
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1383 hair. It fascinated hell out of her. "C'mon, join me, why don't you?" I said. I'd've enjoyed
1384 having her.
1385 "I really don't think I'd better. Thank you so much, though, dear," she said.
1386 "Anyway, the club car's most likely closed. It's quite late, you know." She was right. I'd
1387 forgotten all about what time it was.
1388 Then she looked at me and asked me what I was afraid she was going to ask me.
1389 "Ernest wrote that he'd be home on Wednesday, that Christmas vacation would start on
1390 Wednesday," she said. "I hope you weren't called home suddenly because of illness in the
1391 family." She really looked worried about it. She wasn't just being nosy, you could tell.
1392 "No, everybody's fine at home," I said. "It's me. I have to have this operation."
1393 "Oh! I'm so sorry," she said. She really was, too. I was right away sorry I'd said it,
1394 but it was too late.
1395 "It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain."
1396 "Oh, no!" She put her hand up to her mouth and all. "Oh, I'll be all right and
1397 everything! It's right near the outside. And it's a very tiny one. They can take it out in
1398 about two minutes."
1399 Then I started reading this timetable I had in my pocket. Just to stop lying. Once I
1400 get started, I can go on for hours if I feel like it. No kidding. Hours.
1401 We didn't talk too much after that. She started reading this Vogue she had with
1402 her, and I looked out the window for a while. She got off at Newark. She wished me a lot
1403 of luck with the operation and all. She kept calling me Rudolf. Then she invited me to
1404 visit Ernie during the summer, at Gloucester, Massachusetts. She said their house was
1405 right on the beach, and they had a tennis court and all, but I just thanked her and told her I
1406 was going to South America with my grandmother. Which was really a hot one, because
1407 my grandmother hardly ever even goes out of the house, except maybe to go to a goddam
1408 matinee or something. But I wouldn't visit that sonuvabitch Morrow for all the dough in
1409 the world, even if I was desperate.
- title
- Chunk 4