[
 {
  "chunk": 287,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "A snobbish new junior clerk in the bond room, a rich man's son, coldly snubs Torchy's friendly offer to show him a cheap lunch place, saying he lunches at his club.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior makes a friendly offer to a snobbish newcomer on the same pay, and gets coldly snubbed for it."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 288,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "Torchy gets back at him by blocking the gate and pretending not to know him; the newcomer keeps arriving late, his department head demands he be fired, and the boss reveals he promised the boy's father, a big stockholder, a three-month trial.",
  "predicament": "A supervisor demands a lazy newcomer be fired, and learns the boss has promised the newcomer's powerful father a fair trial."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 289,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "The boss tells the department head to dock the newcomer's pay and pile on work; then the newcomer's gushing mother comes to say goodbye before sailing for Europe, fretting over her son's hardship at a humble job.",
  "predicament": "A well-connected newcomer who cannot be fired is to be worked hard instead, while his mother fusses over his hardships."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 290,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "After the son leaves, the mother comes back to Torchy's desk, flatters his kind face, and asks him to befriend her son and keep an eye on him.",
  "predicament": "A powerful visitor's anxious mother asks someone junior to befriend her difficult son and watch over him."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 291,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "She offers five dollars for every 'satisfactory' weekly report on her son; Torchy accepts, realises he now has to make the son behave to get paid, and is rebuffed again when he tries to be friendly.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior is paid to befriend and report on a snobbish colleague, who wants nothing to do with him."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 292,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "After some days the newcomer asks about the cheap lunch place: his father has not paid his club bill and he is posted for debt, and he has run his wages down to almost nothing by midweek.",
  "predicament": "A proud newcomer who spurned help comes back asking for it, having run out of money and credit."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 293,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "Torchy stakes him to lunch and refuses his stickpin as security; the newcomer sneers at the cheap, crowded lunch places and the working people in them.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior lends a broke, snobbish colleague money, and has to hear him sneer at the ordinary people around them."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 294,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "The newcomer says he won't speak to the 'freaks' at his boarding house and grumbles about his department head; Torchy refuses to join in and learns he wrecked a speeding car in his idle days.",
  "predicament": "A spoiled colleague complains about his boss and his lodgings, and someone junior refuses to join in the grumbling."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 295,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "The newcomer explains that a car crash and expulsion from college made his father send him to work; Torchy announces he is 'retained' to help him make good, is scorned as a mucker, and tells him bluntly he is a poor clerk about to be fired.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior tells a spoiled colleague who looks down on him that he is a failure on the edge of dismissal."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 296,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "Torchy lectures him to come early, stay late, please his boss and not fail at a small job; the newcomer grudgingly agrees to try, and Torchy sends the mother a candid report.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior gives a privileged colleague the plain advice he doesn't follow himself, and the colleague agrees to try it."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 297,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "The newcomer starts arriving early and working hard, wins praise from his department head, and proposes a filing scheme; Torchy next urges him to mix with his fellow boarders.",
  "predicament": "A colleague who took the junior's advice starts winning his supervisor's praise, and is pushed to go further."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 298,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "Within two weeks the newcomer is enthusing about his fellow boarders: a hard-working aspiring cartoonist and an old man who has travelled the world.",
  "predicament": "A former snob discovers that the humble people he refused to speak to are more interesting than he imagined."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 299,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "He has become friends with an immigrant socialist writer and is volunteering to teach boys at a slum settlement; Torchy writes all this proudly into his report, hoping for a bonus.",
  "predicament": "Someone paid to report on a colleague's progress proudly describes changes that the anxious parent may not welcome at all."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 300,
  "story": 22,
  "summary": "The newcomer's father arrives and takes him away: the mother, alarmed by the company he keeps, has him sent abroad for a year, and Torchy realises his own glowing report cost him the job.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior who did too well at a paid favour finds his honest report has ended both the arrangement and his friend's reform."
 }
]