- Against Wilhelm's protests, Dr. Tamkin insists that the two of them leave the brokerage office at lunchtime. Tamkin is still refusing to put in a selling order, and is confident that the December rye will continue to rise.
- The two men head into a nearby cafeteria. Wilhelm gets very little for lunch—some yogurt and crackers and tea—but Tamkin gets a big meal, and tucks right in.
- As he eats, Tamkin gives Wilhelm unsolicited advice about what he should do with the money he'll inherit when Dr. Adler (eventually) dies.
- Tamkin's conversation turns Wilhelm's mind back towards his family troubles. He thinks about his father, his wife, and his mistress, Olive, who "would have married him if he had obtained the divorce" (6.23).
- Tamkin tells Wilhelm that he was once married to a woman who suffered from alcoholism, and who drowned herself at Provincetown, Cape Cod. Wilhelm doesn't believe him.
- Wilhelm worries to himself that today is "a day of reckoning" (6.36), and he realizes how much he is depending on Tamkin to see him through.
- As they sit and eat, Tamkin recounts Mr. Rappaport's life story. It seems that Mr. Rappaport lived his life with two separate families in two separate states. Dr. Tamkin believes that Wilhelm can learn a life lesson from this: that it'd be good for him to see how "some people free themselves from morbid guilt feelings and follow their instincts" (6.43).
- Wilhelm gets angry when Tamkin brings up his children, but soon he reflects on the wisdom of some of Tamkin's words.
- Wilhelm finally gets up and insists that they head back to the brokerage office. Tamkin slides the bills across the table and reminds Wilhelm that he paid for their lunch the day before.
- After he pays both bills, Wilhelm realizes that, in fact, he paid yesterday too.
- As they walk back to the brokerage office, they pass an elderly busker who points his fiddle bow at Wilhelm and shouts, "You!" (6.58).
- When Wilhelm and Tamkin reach the entrance to the brokerage office, Mr. Rappaport is waiting outside. He demands that Wilhelm escort him to a nearby cigar store. Wilhelm protests, but Tamkin convinces him to go.
- Wilhelm hurries Mr. Rappaport to the cigar store and back. When he finally enters the brokerage office, he is dismayed to see that the lard has dropped twenty points, and the December rye has gone back down again too. He does the math, and sees that he's been cleaned out completely.
- Wilhelm searches frantically for Tamkin, but the good doctor is nowhere to be found.