When only a little of the black chemical remains, Kimbro instructs the narrator to go to the tank room to get more. There, however, the narrator finds seven tanks marked by incomprehensible codes, leaving him unable to determine which tank contains the right chemical. He chooses one by scent and continues to mix and paint the tiles, but the tiles turn out sticky and gray, not hard and glossy. Kimbro returns and becomes infuriated, scolding the narrator for putting concentrated remover into the paint and thereby ruining some seventy-five buckets of paint. Kimbro fills the dropper with the correct chemical and leaves the narrator to his job. The paint samples still dry with a vague gray tinge, but Kimbro doesn't seem to notice.Later, the narrator is sent to the furnace room to assist the engineer, Lucius Brockway. Brockway, who believes that assistants are always college-educated men who...