Properties
- end_line
- 1444
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:14:39.506Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1390
- text
- 1331 always tell--with somebody's mother, I mean. Mothers are all slightly insane. The thing
1332 is, though, I liked old Morrow's mother. She was all right. "Would you care for a
1333 cigarette?" I asked her.
1334 She looked all around. "I don't believe this is a smoker, Rudolf," she said. Rudolf.
1335 That killed me.
1336 "That's all right. We can smoke till they start screaming at us," I said. She took a
1337 cigarette off me, and I gave her a light.
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1338 She looked nice, smoking. She inhaled and all, but she didn't wolf the smoke
1339 down, the way most women around her age do. She had a lot of charm. She had quite a
1340 lot of sex appeal, too, if you really want to know.
1341 She was looking at me sort of funny. I may be wrong but I believe your nose is
1342 bleeding, dear, she said, all of a sudden.
1343 I nodded and took out my handkerchief. "I got hit with a snowball," I said. "One
1344 of those very icy ones." I probably would've told her what really happened, but it
1345 would've taken too long. I liked her, though. I was beginning to feel sort of sorry I'd told
1346 her my name was Rudolf Schmidt. "Old Ernie," I said. "He's one of the most popular
1347 boys at Pencey. Did you know that?"
1348 "No, I didn't."
1349 I nodded. "It really took everybody quite a long time to get to know him. He's a
1350 funny guy. A strange guy, in lots of ways--know what I mean? Like when I first met him.
1351 When I first met him, I thought he was kind of a snobbish person. That's what I thought.
1352 But he isn't. He's just got this very original personality that takes you a little while to get
1353 to know him."
1354 Old Mrs. Morrow didn't say anything, but boy, you should've seen her. I had her
1355 glued to her seat. You take somebody's mother, all they want to hear about is what a hot-
1356 shot their son is.
1357 Then I really started chucking the old crap around. "Did he tell you about the
1358 elections?" I asked her. "The class elections?"
1359 She shook her head. I had her in a trance, like. I really did.
1360 "Well, a bunch of us wanted old Ernie to be president of the class. I mean he was
1361 the unanimous choice. I mean he was the only boy that could really handle the job," I
1362 said--boy, was I chucking it. "But this other boy--Harry Fencer--was elected. And the
1363 reason he was elected, the simple and obvious reason, was because Ernie wouldn't let us
1364 nominate him. Because he's so darn shy and modest and all. He refused. . . Boy, he's
1365 really shy. You oughta make him try to get over that." I looked at her. "Didn't he tell you
1366 about it?"
1367 "No, he didn't."
1368 I nodded. "That's Ernie. He wouldn't. That's the one fault with him--he's too shy
1369 and modest. You really oughta get him to try to relax occasionally."
1370 Right that minute, the conductor came around for old Mrs. Morrow's ticket, and it
1371 gave me a chance to quit shooting it. I'm glad I shot it for a while, though. You take a guy
1372 like Morrow that's always snapping their towel at people's asses--really trying to hurt
1373 somebody with it--they don't just stay a rat while they're a kid. They stay a rat their whole
1374 life. But I'll bet, after all the crap I shot, Mrs. Morrow'll keep thinking of him now as this
1375 very shy, modest guy that wouldn't let us nominate him for president. She might. You
1376 can't tell. Mothers aren't too sharp about that stuff.
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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- Chunk 3