1929. The book begins: My big slow man could not remember when it was that he first began to work at the bakery. One time he was piling up sacks of flour in the low dusty room which served the bakery as a storage place. He had picked up a sack, and was turning to put it in its proper place, when all at once he became aware of an unfamiliar presence in the room. This was unusual, because strangers generally went to the office at the other side of the building, where they could talk to Vogel himself. But this time it was different, it seems.
