Summary

Battersby lays in bed and dreams of having a new apartment, money, and a woman to share his life with. He muses on the improbability of dreaming without action, but he imagines everything in his life falling into place with the help of a genie. He pulls back the curtains and hopes for a sunny day. Sometimes “Battersby uses to speculate, like, Sun shining today, and go and pull the curtain to see. When he first come to Londontown, he uses to listen to the weather forecast on the radio” (37).

Bat worries more about money and how he will pay his monthly rent. He lives in a basement apartment but “Funds was running so low that he couldn’t manage. Three pound ten rent for the basement, for one thing, and he only had three pound left out of his wages” (40). He...