Properties
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- 1431
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:41:20.744Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1370
- text
- "Pencey? It's not too bad. It's not paradise or anything, but it's as good as most
schools. Some of the faculty are pretty conscientious."
"Ernest just adores it."
"I know he does," I said. Then I started shooting the old crap around a little bit.
"He adapts himself very well to things. He really does. I mean he really knows how to
adapt himself."
"Do you think so?" she asked me. She sounded interested as hell.
"Ernest? Sure," I said. Then I watched her take off her gloves. Boy, was she lousy
with rocks.
"I just broke a nail, getting out of a cab," she said. She looked up at me and sort of
smiled. She had a terrifically nice smile. She really did. Most people have hardly any
smile at all, or a lousy one. "Ernest's father and I sometimes worry about him," she said.
"We sometimes feel he's not a terribly good mixer."
"How do you mean?"
"Well. He's a very sensitive boy. He's really never been a terribly good mixer with
other boys. Perhaps he takes things a little more seriously than he should at his age."
Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddam
toilet seat.
I gave her a good look. She didn't look like any dope to me. She looked like she
might have a pretty damn good idea what a bastard she was the mother of. But you can't
always tell--with somebody's mother, I mean. Mothers are all slightly insane. The thing
is, though, I liked old Morrow's mother. She was all right. "Would you care for a
cigarette?" I asked her.
She looked all around. "I don't believe this is a smoker, Rudolf," she said. Rudolf.
That killed me.
"That's all right. We can smoke till they start screaming at us," I said. She took a
cigarette off me, and I gave her a light.
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She looked nice, smoking. She inhaled and all, but she didn't wolf the smoke
down, the way most women around her age do. She had a lot of charm. She had quite a
lot of sex appeal, too, if you really want to know.
She was looking at me sort of funny. I may be wrong but I believe your nose is
bleeding, dear, she said, all of a sudden.
I nodded and took out my handkerchief. "I got hit with a snowball," I said. "One
of those very icy ones." I probably would've told her what really happened, but it
would've taken too long. I liked her, though. I was beginning to feel sort of sorry I'd told
her my name was Rudolf Schmidt. "Old Ernie," I said. "He's one of the most popular
boys at Pencey. Did you know that?"
"No, I didn't."
I nodded. "It really took everybody quite a long time to get to know him. He's a
funny guy. A strange guy, in lots of ways--know what I mean? Like when I first met him.
When I first met him, I thought he was kind of a snobbish person. That's what I thought.
But he isn't. He's just got this very original personality that takes you a little while to get
to know him."
Old Mrs. Morrow didn't say anything, but boy, you should've seen her. I had her
glued to her seat. You take somebody's mother, all they want to hear about is what a hot-
shot their son is.
Then I really started chucking the old crap around. "Did he tell you about the
elections?" I asked her. "The class elections?"
She shook her head. I had her in a trance, like. I really did.
"Well, a bunch of us wanted old Ernie to be president of the class. I mean he was
the unanimous choice. I mean he was the only boy that could really handle the job," I
said--boy, was I chucking it. "But this other boy--Harry Fencer--was elected. And the
reason he was elected, the simple and obvious reason, was because Ernie wouldn't let us
nominate him. Because he's so darn shy and modest and all. He refused. . . Boy, he's
really shy. You oughta make him try to get over that." I looked at her. "Didn't he tell you
about it?"
"No, he didn't."
I nodded. "That's Ernie. He wouldn't. That's the one fault with him--he's too shy
and modest. You really oughta get him to try to relax occasionally."
Right that minute, the conductor came around for old Mrs. Morrow's ticket, and it
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