The story tells us about Gussy who works for Industrial Corporation as a caretaker. He is black one-legged man whose life is quite miserable: he has to support his elderly mother in spite of the fact that he is handicapped. But Gussy is rather satisfied with it and doesn't complain about anything. He likes his job and appreciates the fact he has it. However the company has just changed its hands and now everything is different here for Gussy. His new boss, mr. Blade, feels sorry for him and even intends to raise Gussy's salary. Meanwhile mrs. Blade comes to the office and makes her husband get rid of the black caretaker. Even though the news about increasing salary doesn't make Gussy feel comfortable among white people, still inspired and encouraged, Gussy is about to enter the boss's office not knowing that the news about increasing salary had already been transformed into firing him. Here we can see what the author wanted to point out in the story: Sometimes not only people's skin is white as snow but their hearts are also cold as ice. Through the first passages we can see an important problem which has been risen in the text: treating the black as inferior to the white.
The story takes place in southern outskirts of Port-of-Spain where a lot of black people are supposed to live. But despite this new bosses of the company which is now called The New Enterprises Company are all European businessmen which once again rises the problem of white&black relationships.
The story is told with the 3rd person narration; the author presents the characters in different ways: he is quite ironic about the new boss who's runs such a big company and is afraid of real life difficulties; his wife has a great influence on him; Gussy is shown sympathetically, the author is not indifferent to his life at all.
The story has no flashbacks, everything is told chronologically however