Our precarious life among unfriendly
nations has made a thrifty people of us, and for a man like
Chaikin forty-five dollars a week, every week in the year, meant
superabundance
The Manheimers were relegated to the background. It was no
longer a mere matter of punishing Jeff. It was a much greater
thing.
I visioned myself a rich man, of course, but that was merely a
detail. What really hypnotized me was the venture of the thing. It
was a great, daring game of life
I tried to reconcile this new dream of mine with my college
projects. I was again performing the trick of eating the cake and
having it. I would picture myself building up a great cloak
business and somehow contriving, at the same time, to go to
college
The new scheme was scarcely ever absent from my mind. I would
ponder it over my work and during my meals. It would visit me in
my sleep in a thousand grotesque forms. Chaikin became the
center of the universe. I was continually eying him, listening for
his voice, scrutinizing his look, his gestures, his clothes
He was an insignificant-looking man of thirty-two, with almost a
cadaverous face and a very prominent Adam's apple.
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