[
 {"chunk": 282, "story": 24, "summary": "At breakfast he reads that his placid broker has shot himself, and turns ghastly pale for the first time in his life.", "predicament": "A schemer who has always taken losses coolly reads that the man holding his whole fortune has killed himself."},
 {"chunk": 283, "story": 24, "summary": "The respectable old broker had kept six households and had been juggling customers' money for years.", "predicament": "A respected handler of other people's money turns out to have been secretly stealing from all his clients for years."},
 {"chunk": 284, "story": 24, "summary": "The dingy office is full of frantic customers; the surviving partner flinches when the swindler gives his name.", "predicament": "A frightened surviving partner of a collapsed firm faces the biggest of the clients whose money has vanished."},
 {"chunk": 285, "story": 24, "summary": "The partner explains the broker used the swindler's money to cover his thefts, then gambled the rest to make it up and was wiped out when the market broke.", "predicament": "A man who staked everything learns his trusted handler spent it on his own debts and gambled away the rest."},
 {"chunk": 286, "story": 24, "summary": "Dazed, he hands out cigars and leaves; he has fifty-four dollars, and his wife silently hands over her diamonds.", "predicament": "A schemer suddenly left with nothing accepts his partner's last valuables without a word, too stunned to speak."},
 {"chunk": 287, "story": 24, "summary": "He tells his wife never to preach again: he tried a legitimate deal and a thief got all the money.", "predicament": "A schemer who lost everything on his one attempt at big business blames honesty itself and rails at the thief who beat him."},
 {"chunk": 288, "story": 24, "summary": "She weeps for her lost hopes; he sinks into apathy, and they drift from town to town, pawning her diamonds and living in boarding houses.", "predicament": "A schemer who lost everything falls into apathy, while his partner watches her hope of a respectable life vanish again."},
 {"chunk": 289, "story": 24, "summary": "Disgusted by a boarding-house dinner, he moves them into the best hotel with no money, so that the bill will force him back to work.", "predicament": "A broke man deliberately runs up a debt he cannot pay, to force himself to get back to work."},
 {"chunk": 290, "story": 24, "summary": "Back in luxury on credit his spirits revive, but pocket money runs low; in a shabby cigar shop the maker complains that the government favours combinations over little men.", "predicament": "A man living in luxury on credit overhears a struggling small trader complain that big combinations crush the little man."},
 {"chunk": 291, "story": 24, "summary": "The loungers in the shop agree the laws grind down the poor; the promoter's arrival wakes everyone up.", "predicament": "A roomful of idle small traders grumbling about the rich perks up at once when a rich-looking customer walks in."},
 {"chunk": 292, "story": 24, "summary": "He buys good cigars, wincing at his own frayed clothes, and watches the maker pay a salesman a high price for a heavily advertised brand.", "predicament": "A man whose finery is fraying still passes for rich, and watches a struggling small trader overpay a big supplier."},
 {"chunk": 293, "story": 24, "summary": "The maker says his own cigar is better but he cannot afford advertising, and that consolidators should be jailed.", "predicament": "A small trader with a better product and some savings cannot afford to compete with a big firm's advertising."},
 {"chunk": 294, "story": 24, "summary": "The promoter suggests the small dealers combine to buy in bulk, and the maker warms at once; the confederate, disguised and on the run, appears begging for money.", "predicament": "A small trader who hates combinations changes his mind the moment someone suggests one that would help him."}
]