Chapter 5, The Story of a Business Partnership Summary

Guido decides to set up an office. Filled with high hopes of the brilliant transactions he will perform and the profits which will no doubt bless his business firm, he convinces Zeno to come pretend to work there. Pretending to work is all that ever really gets done in the office. Zeno has extremely limited experience playing office at his own firm, which is fortunately run by the wise Olivi. Zeno also performs the important task of ordering nice furnishings for the office.

They try to get Olivi to come work for them, but instead he sends them his young relative Luciano. Luciano acts as a sort of clerk and turns out to be the only one with any sort of business sense. They also feel they need a highly skilled...