"Work, if I can find a job."
"What kind of job?"
He explained that for the last two summers he had worked round the Quincy and Faneuil Hall markets, but that he had outgrown them. A two-fisted, he-man's job was what he would look for now, and had no doubt that he would get it.
"After you've left Harvard what are you going to be?"
"Banking's what I'd like best, but most likely I'll have to make it barbering. What are you going to be yourself?"
"Oh, I've got to be a corporation lawyer. My luck! Just because dad'll have the business to take me into."
"But what would you like better?"
The piggy face broke into one of its captivating grins. "Hanged if I know, unless it'd be an orphan and an only child."
The meeting was important because of what it led to. A few days later Tom heard the wheezy girlish voice calling behind him in the street: "Tom! Tom!"
He turned and walked back. During the winter the fat boy had expanded, not so much in height as in girth and jelliness. He came up, puffing from his run.