[
{"chunk":603,"story":68,"summary":"A draughtsman on eighteen dollars a week saves a dollar weekly to spend one evening in ten dressed and dining as a rich idler.","predicament":"Someone of modest means saves for months to pass one evening as rich."},
{"chunk":604,"story":68,"summary":"Parading the bright street in borrowed grandeur, he stops at a corner as a girl slips on ice and falls.","predicament":"Someone enjoying their rare evening of show stops to help a stranger who falls."},
{"chunk":605,"story":68,"summary":"He helps her up; she seems a refined working girl in a plain dress, and he decides to invite her to dine.","predicament":"Someone playing a part decides to share their one evening with a stranger."},
{"chunk":606,"story":68,"summary":"He invites her to dinner to rest her ankle; she hesitates over her plain clothes, and he insists they suit her.","predicament":"Someone extends an invitation across what they believe is a gap in station."},
{"chunk":607,"story":68,"summary":"She accepts and gives only her first name; at a good restaurant each looks at the other with growing admiration.","predicament":"Two strangers enjoy each other's company without knowing the truth about either."},
{"chunk":608,"story":68,"summary":"Carried away, he boasts of clubs, yachts and idleness; she asks whether he has no work that would interest him more.","predicament":"Someone lies about their standing to impress a person who would have preferred the truth."},
{"chunk":609,"story":68,"summary":"They part; he wishes he had told the truth; she hurries to a grand mansion where her sister has been anxious.","predicament":"Someone regrets the lie they told, while the other returns to a life they also hid."},
{"chunk":610,"story":68,"summary":"She tells her sister she could love a poor man with an ambition, but never an idler between clubs and society.","predicament":"Someone describes exactly the person they would love, and it is who the liar really was."},
{"chunk":611,"story":69,"summary":"A young man passing a young woman on a park bench stops further on, and sends a boy with a message to her.","predicament":"Someone forbidden to speak to a person they love sends word through a stranger."},
{"chunk":612,"story":69,"summary":"The message says he is leaving the country and asks her, for old times' sake, why she discarded him without explanation.","predicament":"Someone dismissed without explanation makes one last appeal for a reason."},
{"chunk":613,"story":69,"summary":"The boy delivers it in street slang; she answers with cool irony that she knew the gentleman and will hear it.","predicament":"Someone receives an appeal from a person they have cut off, and listens coldly."},
{"chunk":614,"story":69,"summary":"She says she saw him in the conservatory embracing another woman, and so gave up both her rose and her ideal.","predicament":"Someone judged by what they appeared to be doing was never asked to explain it."},
{"chunk":615,"story":69,"summary":"He sends back a letter, saying a little trust would have spared much heartache, and the boy vouches for him.","predicament":"Someone wrongly condemned produces the proof they were never given a chance to show."},
{"chunk":616,"story":69,"summary":"The letter thanks him, a doctor, for catching the other woman when she fainted; the young woman sends back that she wants him.","predicament":"Someone learns that what they condemned was a kindness, and takes the person back."},
{"chunk":617,"story":70,"summary":"In a district of transient lodgers, a young man rings a dozen bells and is shown a room by a sinister housekeeper.","predicament":"Someone searching for a place to stay tries door after door in a shifting neighbourhood."},
{"chunk":618,"story":70,"summary":"She praises the room and its last tenants, a stage couple; many of her lodgers work in the theatres and move on.","predicament":"Someone is shown a room by a landlady eager to describe everyone but the truth."},
{"chunk":619,"story":70,"summary":"He takes the room and asks, as he has a thousand times, after a young singer; the answer, as always, is no.","predicament":"Someone has searched for months for a lost person and hears the same answer again."},
{"chunk":620,"story":70,"summary":"Alone in the shabby room, he takes in the pictures and castoffs that pursue the homeless from house to house.","predicament":"Someone alone in a strange room reads the traces of everyone who stayed there before."},
{"chunk":621,"story":70,"summary":"The room's damage speaks of the rage of past tenants against a place that pretended to be a home.","predicament":"Someone sees in a room's scars how others resented a home that was never theirs."},
{"chunk":622,"story":70,"summary":"Suddenly the room fills with the scent the lost girl loved, and he cries out that she has been here.","predicament":"Someone senses the presence of the person they seek, but cannot find any proof."},
{"chunk":623,"story":70,"summary":"He ransacks drawers and corners for any trace of her and finds only the anonymous leavings of strangers.","predicament":"Someone searches everywhere for one sign they are right, and finds nothing."},
{"chunk":624,"story":70,"summary":"The housekeeper lists the room's previous tenants, none like her; he returns and the scent has gone.","predicament":"Someone asks directly and is told a lie that ends their last hope."},
{"chunk":625,"story":70,"summary":"He seals the room and turns on the gas; below, the housekeeper admits a young girl killed herself in that bed a week ago.","predicament":"Someone gives up just as the truth is being concealed a floor below them."},
{"chunk":626,"story":71,"summary":"A cheap chop house is kept by a sour owner at the cash desk, and served by two waitresses, one of them beautiful.","predicament":"Two people do the same work where only one of them is noticed."},
{"chunk":627,"story":71,"summary":"The other waitress is plain and too anxious to please; every customer is enslaved by her beautiful partner.","predicament":"Someone plain works beside someone admired and receives none of the attention."},
{"chunk":628,"story":71,"summary":"The beautiful one is courted and given presents by regulars; the plain one has never had a single admirer.","predicament":"Someone who has never been wanted watches another be wanted daily."},
{"chunk":629,"story":71,"summary":"The plain one is loyal and content to be overlooked, and listens enviously to her friend's tale of being followed and struck.","predicament":"Someone envies even the troubles that come to people others find desirable."},
{"chunk":630,"story":71,"summary":"A shy customer, drunk, kisses the plain waitress and leaves; her friend teases her as a rival, and she feels transformed.","predicament":"Someone overlooked all their life is suddenly singled out, and becomes someone new."},
{"chunk":631,"story":71,"summary":"She tells the owner and every customer she was insulted; she gets a raise, ribbons and new attention.","predicament":"Someone makes the most of the single sign that they were desired."},
{"chunk":632,"story":71,"summary":"The man returns to apologise, saying he was drunk and would never have done it sober; she sobs among the cups.","predicament":"Someone learns the one sign of being wanted was an accident the other regrets."},
{"chunk":633,"story":72,"summary":"Two country girls come to the city for work; one irons in a laundry and dresses loudly on good wages.","predicament":"Someone takes the best-paying work available and spends it on show."},
{"chunk":634,"story":72,"summary":"The other sells in a department store at eight dollars a week, dressed plainly but in the manner of the rich.","predicament":"Someone chooses lower pay to stay close to the people they hope to join."},
{"chunk":635,"story":72,"summary":"The store girl says she means to catch a rich husband; the laundress met her steady young man over her ironing board.","predicament":"Two friends argue whether to aim high and hungry or stay content with what comes."},
{"chunk":636,"story":72,"summary":"The laundress's steady electrician arrives and proposes the theatre, and the two women trade teasing about manners.","predicament":"Someone steady and plain is overlooked by the people he takes out."},
{"chunk":637,"story":72,"summary":"In the store the girl copies the gestures, voice and walk of her richest customers and absorbs their manners.","predicament":"Someone learns the manners of a class above them by watching it closely."},
{"chunk":638,"story":72,"summary":"The store girls pool their stratagems for fending off men, and she learns the art of defence.","predicament":"People in the same position share their methods for dealing with those who pursue them."},
{"chunk":639,"story":72,"summary":"Men linger at her counter; she learns to tell the real rich from the imitators by the cars waiting outside.","predicament":"Someone hunting a prize learns to tell the genuine article from the imitation."},
{"chunk":640,"story":72,"summary":"A genuinely rich young man proposes to her over the counter, and she declines him to her colleague's horror.","predicament":"Someone turns down the prize they were seeking because of what they saw in the person."},
{"chunk":641,"story":72,"summary":"She explains that he was caught in a lie and that she wants someone who is more than a moneybag.","predicament":"Someone holds out for character in a partner even at the price of a fortune."},
{"chunk":642,"story":72,"summary":"She keeps hunting on eight dollars a week, while the laundress spends her wages on ever showier clothes.","predicament":"Two friends pursue their different ideas of success and slowly drift from the same person."},
{"chunk":643,"story":72,"summary":"The laundress refuses to marry her steady man and keep house, and offers to find her friend better-paid work.","predicament":"Someone keeps a faithful suitor waiting because their independence pleases them more."},
{"chunk":644,"story":72,"summary":"The store girl says she is still looking the rich over; her friend mocks her plain jacket and bets she will catch one first.","predicament":"Two friends compete over who will marry better, each sure of her own method."},
{"chunk":645,"story":72,"summary":"Surrounded by luxury, her standard of value slowly shifts from money toward truth, honour and kindness.","predicament":"Someone pursuing wealth finds they have begun to value something else."},
{"chunk":646,"story":72,"summary":"The steady man says the laundress has vanished, seen riding with a rich man; the store girl goes to the show with him.","predicament":"Someone abandoned by the person they waited for is comforted by the friend left behind."},
{"chunk":647,"story":72,"summary":"Months later the laundress, dressed in furs and jewels, learns her friend is marrying the man she left, and sobs against a fence.","predicament":"Someone who took the glittering offer sees the one they rejected make another happy."}
]