- Augie doesn't know what he wants for himself.
- He's circling around his prospects.
- Simon and others his age have chosen their directions.
- Dingbat, Einhorn's brother, tries for a time to give Augie aim in life.
- At this time, Dingbat is working as the manager for a fighter named Nails.
- When that doesn't work out, he gets a job in the National Guard and has to deal with a great jailbreak.
- The stress of this work is too much for him and he gets a match for Nails in Michigan. The two head off there.
- Einhorn sends Augie to check in on his brother.
- They take a boat ride on the lake to their destination. It's cheaper than the train but it makes Nails queasy.
- Nails cleans up at the YMCA and prepares for the match, a fight against a younger man.
- He loses. The three of them are broke.
- They hitch rides back toward Chicago.
- When they return, there's isn't much of a welcome.
- Einhorn's place had had a fire.
- The inspector hints at foul play and hints that he'd like to be paid off.
- Augie suspects that Einhorn deliberately caused the fire as a way to get his wife a new living-room suite.
- Back at home, Augie takes his mom to visit Georgie. His mom's eyesight is bad and Georgie's now bigger than Augie.
- Simon tells Augie that Grandma Lausch is nearing the end of her life. He advises that, for their mother's sake, they see to it that Grandma moves out.
- Simon writes to her son.
- Grandma Lausch believes she's being rescued by her sons. She's to go to a swanky retirement home, populated mostly by former professors.
- They pack her belongings over the course of two weeks and borrow a car from Einhorn to transport her to her new residence.
- The place is not what Grandma Lausch expected—it's just a onetime apartment house, and she has to share a room with three others.
- When Augie is leaving, Grandma Lausch gives him "an angry quarter—the payoff."
- Over at the Einhorn's residence, life has its own difficulties. Einhorn's father, "the Commissioner," is dying, and deeds are changing hands.
- Einhorn feels the pressure of being head of the household and no longer under his father's protection.
- You wouldn't think the married man would be lustful at a time like this, but Einhorn is. He sends Augie to Lollie with messages. She answers his notes but doesn't come back into his life.
- Mrs. Einhorn, a superstitious person, covers the mirrors in the room when the Commissioner passes away.
- Although not a religious man, Einhorn goes to the synagogue.
- Afterwards, he sends everyone away except Augie while he writes the obituary for his father.
- Then they go through the Commissioners papers. Some Einhorn instructs Augie to keep. Others he orders to the fire.
- Einhorn realizes that the family is not as financially secure as he had been led to believe.