“That’s what I thought. Me, I never had the opportunity. I had to go to work,” said the stout man with pride. “I had to work when I was a youngster. I never went to college.”
“It’s a good experience,” said Robert Holton, wishing the man would read his paper and stop asking questions. The train went around a corner noisily; blue electric sparks sparkled outside the window. Then the train straightened out again.
“I’m in the grocery business,” said the stout man.
“I know,” said Robert Holton, “we’ve talked about that before.”
“I started right in at the bottom,” said the stout man.
“That’s the best place to start,” said Robert Holton, feeling that there was no answer to this. He was wrong.
“Well, I don’t know. It’s hard to say. How did you like the army?”
“It wasn’t bad.”
“It wasn’t good neither. I never got overseas last time, I mean time before last, but we had it rough in training.”
“I can imagine.” Robert Holton looked away and the stout man stopped talking. Robert Holton looked at the upper moulding of the car to see if there were any new advertisements. There weren’t any. His special favorite, a girl advertising beer, was behind him and he couldn’t see it. Gloomily he examined a fat red child devouring a piece of bread. This was the advertisement he liked least. He looked away.