The chapter opens with the parents of a young boy complaining about their child's schoolwork. They're worried about the upcoming midterms, and they want to make sure that their son is doing well in school. They want him to be a good student, but they also don't want him hanging out with his "desk mate" , who they think is a "bad person" . When the parents leave, they talk about how their son has become "ruder" by the day, and how he treats his classmates the same way they treat him. They decide that it's not a bad thing for him to pick up some skills, so long as he does it with the knowledge that he'll have to work in the future.