- Victor gets up early in the morning on Monday to pick up the papers for his route. One of the other boys starts grilling him about where Rat is. This means Victor has to start talking and reveal that he stutters.
- The boy starts making fun of Victor. Ugh. Victor goes to grab his bundles of newspapers, but when he uses his yellow-handle knife to cut the cords around the papers, he realizes that it's gone dull.
- As he throws his papers, Victor practices saying one hard word aloud at each house. At one house, where a pretty lady is sitting outside, he says "pitch."
- Unfortunately, though, the woman hears him calling her "b****" and demands that he turn around and talk to her. He can smell the alcohol on her breath as she yells at him and tells him that he shouldn't even be throwing the paper at her house—he should walk it to the door like a gentleman.
- Victor finishes up his route and goes home to write a letter to the woman, Mrs. Worthington. He tells her that he's sorry and that he wasn't saying a bad word; he just stutters and couldn't explain himself.
- Then he goes back to her house and puts the note in her mailbox so that she'll get it.
- The rest of the week goes just fine. On Thursday when Victor gets to Mrs. Worthington's house, she opens the door and is wearing a nice dress. She looks even prettier than she did last time, and she acts prettier, too, apologizing for yelling at him last time.
- She asks him if he'll come by on Friday to collect the paper money and he explains that she pays by the month so her collection isn't for a while. She says that she'll start paying weekly.