The narrator returns to the district office after the funeral to find the leading committee of the Brotherhood waiting for him. They are angry that he gave Clifton a hero's funeral because they consider him a traitor for selling the Sambo dolls. The narrator tries to explain that the focus is on the fact that Clifton was gunned down for a slight offense. He tells the committee members that the people of Harlem are ready to act and waiting for the Brotherhood to lead them despite the fact that the Brotherhood let them down before. The committee is angry that he didn't wait for their orders before he acted because it shows a lack of discipline of which the Brotherhood disapproves. Brother Tobbit, a white member of the Brotherhood, verbally lashes out at the narrator for claiming to know the minds of the people of Harlem.
Tobbit insists that he is more in touch with the black community than the narrator is because his own wife is black. The two men argue and as their argument escalates, Brother Jack gets so angry that his glass eye shoots out of his head and scares the narrator. Brother Jack explains how he lost his eye for the cause, for the Brotherhood, and he tries to intimidate the narrator into seeing that discipline is sacrifice. When the narrator is properly subdued, the committee members leave after giving him orders to see Brother Hambro for new instructions. Brother Jack tells the narrator that he knows how he feels, but the narrator doesn't believe him. The young man thinks that Brother Jack's good eye is just as blind as his glass eye. The narrator suddenly wants to extract himself from the Brotherhood, but he knows that if he does, then he returns to being a nobody, an invisible man.
