In this chap­ter from “The Catch­er in the Rye,” Hold­en Caulfield wakes up feel­ing rest­less and hun­gry, hav­ing skipped break­fast. He con­tem­plates call­ing old Jane but decides instead to reach out to Sal­ly Hayes, an acquain­tance from school. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals Holden’s ambiva­lence; while he finds Sal­ly pho­ny and irri­tat­ing, there’s an unde­ni­able attrac­tion. They arrange to meet for a mati­nee, even as Hold­en inter­nal­ly cri­tiques her some­what shal­low inter­ests.

After hang­ing up, he packs his bag and exits his hotel, deter­mined to avoid a con­fronta­tion with Mau­rice, who he loathes. Instead of hop­ing for a pur­pose­ful day, he catch­es a cab to Grand Cen­tral Sta­tion with­out any con­crete des­ti­na­tion in mind, aware that he has to wait until Wednes­day to return home. He checks his mea­ger finances, recall­ing how he tends to waste mon­ey, and heads to a sand­wich bar for break­fast, indulging in a larg­er meal than usu­al.

Dur­ing break­fast, he encoun­ters two nuns, which prompts a light-heart­ed inter­ac­tion. The sight of their cheap lug­gage comes off as sig­nif­i­cant to Hold­en, remind­ing him of his own expe­ri­ences with class and sta­tus. He offers them ten dol­lars for their char­i­ty col­lec­tion, per­ceiv­ing them as gen­uine­ly hum­ble and kind. They seem sur­prised by his gen­eros­i­ty, under­scor­ing Hold­en’s inter­nal con­flict about his wealth.

The nuns reveal they are teacher nuns mov­ing to a new con­vent. Hold­en engages in a dis­cus­sion about lit­er­a­ture, shar­ing his favorites, includ­ing *Romeo and Juli­et*. Despite feel­ing awk­ward dis­cussing such top­ics with a nun, he appre­ci­ates their friend­ly demeanor. The con­ver­sa­tion taps into his inse­cu­ri­ties about social con­nec­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to reli­gious iden­ti­ty. He feels a notable relief when they don’t ask about his own reli­gious back­ground.

How­ev­er, an embar­rass­ing moment ensues when he acci­den­tal­ly blows smoke in the nuns’ faces while say­ing good­bye, which adds to his feel­ings of regret and social anx­i­ety. As they leave, he grap­ples with guilt over his dona­tion, as he has plans to spend the remain­der of his mon­ey on the upcom­ing date with Sal­ly, and once again rec­og­nizes how mon­ey com­pli­cates rela­tion­ships and feel­ings.