[
 {
  "chunk": 454,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The boss has been irritable over a visiting cousin: a short, gaudily dressed, much-married widow with a head for business and a taste for fads.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior notices the boss's temper is being soured by an embarrassing relative who has come to stay."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 455,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The boss summons the cousin, who leaves flushed and tearful but defiant; he then quizzes Torchy about a self-styled 'sculptor poet' whose book he waves in disgust.",
  "predicament": "After a stormy private talk with a relative, the boss suddenly quizzes someone junior about a stranger he has never met."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 456,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The boss reads out the poet's bad verse and a gushing inscription to the cousin, gives Torchy twenty dollars, and orders a full investigation, being sure the poet is after her money.",
  "predicament": "The boss hands someone junior expense money to dig up everything on a man he suspects of preying on a rich relative."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 457,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "Using directories and the who's-who, Torchy learns the poet's basic facts, then heads to the old newspaper office where he once worked and runs into a former reporter who hangs about there.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior uses tricks from an earlier job to investigate for the boss, and runs into an old acquaintance."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 458,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The reporter, once brilliant and full of schemes, is now hooked on stock speculation; he greets Torchy flippantly and asks whether there is a story in his errand.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior meets a once-promising former colleague whose gambling habit has left him stuck and shabby."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 459,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The reporter has just been assigned to cover the poet's tea party, and bitterly says the poet is his own invention, a joke he built up in print, and his new editor is taking the fraud seriously.",
  "predicament": "A struggling man is ordered by a new boss to praise someone he knows is a fraud, or lose his job."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 460,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The reporter says anyone can pay to print a book, that he steered the poet to a vanity press for a commission and even padded his verses; Torchy remembers the poet as a soft-spoken 'mushbag'.",
  "predicament": "A disgruntled insider reveals the unimpressive reality behind someone's public reputation, which he himself helped to build."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 461,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The reporter explains that the poet craved publicity and that he wrote the flattering feature and coined the 'sculptor poet' tag as a joke, which stuck until everyone believed it.",
  "predicament": "Someone admits that a reputation everyone now takes seriously began as his own joke that got out of hand."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 462,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The poet actually lives off cheese factories inherited from his father and cooled toward the reporter after losing money in his stock tips; learning of the widow, the reporter plots to wreck the romance for revenge.",
  "predicament": "A resentful former associate learns of his rival's rich romance and eagerly offers to help someone junior wreck it."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 463,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The reporter smuggles Torchy in posing as a press-agency man; the party is in a smart building with society guests, and the cousin, extravagantly dressed, waits eagerly for the host.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior slips into a fashionable gathering under a false identity to watch the boss's relative and her admirer."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 464,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The poet enters in a monk's robe and sandals, is gushed over by the cousin, and greets the resentful reporter with warm, unashamed friendliness.",
  "predicament": "A resentful former associate braces for a snub from the man he mocks, and is greeted with embarrassing warmth instead."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 465,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The poet cheerfully feeds them publicity material and cigars; the reporter vows a sarcastic write-up, while the cousin trails the poet everywhere, drawing sniggers from the guests.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior watches the boss's relative make a public fool of herself chasing an admirer, confirming the boss's fears."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 466,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "After readings and a fine fish soup, the cousin sits by the reporter, who tells her the poet is a fake who makes his money in cheese.",
  "predicament": "A resentful man seizes a quiet moment to feed a smitten woman damaging truths about the man she admires."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 467,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The reporter invents a wife and six children, whom the poet beats; the cousin shrieks, denounces the bewildered poet as a monster before everyone, faints, and storms out, breaking up the party.",
  "predicament": "A malicious lie told to break up a romance causes a public scene that humiliates the smitten relative and her admirer."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 468,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "The reporter admits the joke; the poet, delighted, thanks him for freeing him from a widow who had been pursuing him for weeks, and showers them with cigars and photos.",
  "predicament": "A schemer who meant to ruin a rival's romance learns the rival was desperate to escape it, and is thanked."
 },
 {
  "chunk": 469,
  "story": 34,
  "summary": "Torchy gives the reporter the boss's twenty dollars; the next day's paper runs a glowing story on the party, and the boss, told the romance is over, asks no further questions and jokes about Torchy's methods.",
  "predicament": "Someone junior reports that the boss's embarrassing family problem is solved, and the boss prefers not to ask how."
 }
]