Passing the shop after school, he would look up at the sign
       and go on, glad that his own life had to do with books.
Now at night when he saw the grey in his parents’ hair and
       heard their talk of the day’s worries and the next:
lack of orders, if orders, lack of workers, if workers, lack of
       goods, if there were workers and goods, lack of orders again,
for the tenth time he said, “I’m going in with you: there’s more
       money in business.”
His father answered, "Since when do you care about money?
       You don’t know what kind of life you’re going into—
       but you have always had your own way.”

He went out selling: in the morning he read the Arrival of
       Buyers in The Times: he packed a half dozen samples into
       a box and went from office to office.
Others like himself, sometimes a crowd, were waiting to thrust
       their cards through a partition opening.

When he ate, vexations were forgotten for a while. A quarter
       past eleven was the time to go down the steps to Holz’s lunch counter.
He would mount one of the stools. The food, steaming
       fragrance, just brought from the kitchen, would be
       dumped into the trays of the steam-table.
Hamburger steak, mashed potatoes, onions and gravy, or a
       knackwurst and sauerkraut; after that, a pudding with a
       square of sugar and butter sliding from the top and red
       fruit juice dripping over the saucer.
He was growing fat.