- Wilhelm leaves Rubin's newsstand and heads to the front desk to pick up his mail. Among the letters is his rent bill, and Wilhelm knows he doesn't have the money to pay it.
- Wilhelm's money worries get him thinking about his father again, and how frustrating it is that Dr. Adler refuses to see (or care) that his son is in a bad way.
- Wilhelm's thoughts about his father soon bring him to thoughts about his wife, Margaret. The two have been separated for four years, but she refuses to give him a divorce. Wilhelm believes that she wants to ruin him, and bleed him dry.
- Depressed and worried, Wilhelm heads into the dining room, and meets his father for breakfast.
- Dr. Adler is sitting with another neighbor of theirs, an elderly man called Mr. Perls. Wilhelm resents having to eat breakfast with one of his father's old crony friends, but he relents when he reminds himself that Mr. Perls has probably seen more tragedy in his life than Wilhelm ever has.
- While Wilhelm sits at the table, Dr. Adler thinks to himself that his soon is looking "particularly untidy this morning" (2.34). He can't understanding why Wilhelm finds it so hard to pull himself together.
- Dr. Adler scolds Wilhelm for taking too many pills, but Wilhelm denies that he's an addict.
- The three men make small talk, and Wilhelm muses about visiting his mother's grave. He tries to sneak two pills—"a Phenaphen sedative and a Unicap"—but his father notices (2.45). Wilhelm insists that they're just vitamins.
- Dr. Adler explains to Mr. Perls that Wilhelm used to be a traveling salesman for the Rojax Corporation, a company that manufactures children's furniture.
- Wilhelm is annoyed that his father wants to talk about him, but he tries to be sociable.
- As their food arrives, Dr. Adler watches Wilhelm crack and peel a boiled egg, and is disgusted by the fact that Wilhelm's dirty fingers leave marks on the egg's white flesh.
- Wilhelm talks about his decision to leave the Rojax Corporation, and insists that the company mistreated him. He boasts that he could easily go to work for one of their competitors, and steal Rojax's customers away from them.
- Dr. Adler tells Wilhelm to stop talking nonsense, and insists that he should be thinking "about making a living and meeting your obligations" instead (2.68).
- Embarrassed, Wilhelm insists that he's always met his obligations, with no help from anyone.
- As the men continue to talk, their discussion turns to Dr. Tamkin. Mr. Perls has heard that Wilhelm and Tamkin have gone into "some kind of investment" together (2.79).
- Dr. Adler wonders aloud whether Tamkin really is a medical doctor. He remarks that Tamkin has always been vague about whether he's a psychologist or a psychiatrist, and speculates that Tamkin got his degree from a shady correspondence school.
- Although Wilhelm protests that Tamkin is a reputable doctor and a serious businessman, Dr. Adler insists that he's a swindler, and "[p]erhaps even crazy" (2.89).
- Dr. Adler and Mr. Perls laugh about all of the strange devices that Tamkin claims to have invented, including an electrical shock device for long-haul truckers so they won't doze off on the road, and an underwater suit that a person could use to walk on the floor of the Hudson River, "in case of an atomic attack" (2.94).
- As Dr. Adler and Mr. Perls make fun of Tamkin's strange ideas, Wilhelm grows more and more anxious and upset. After all, he's given Tamkin a power of attorney over the last of his savings, and if the price of lard doesn't rise today, he's going to lose everything.