The Gold Frame Summary

The gold frame is a story about a man who makes his living framing pictures. When we first meet the man, we are introduced to someone who is all business.... he recommends frames, paying little attention to the customer, and in turn, the customers defer to his advice. He also neglects the order of his work, waiting for the customer to show up to retrive their framed photo before he even begins. His own sense of urgency, thus, was spurred on by the customer's.

When the customer we meet in the first scene does show up again, however, the old man begins his work. Unfortunately, he becomes upset by the inability to locate his pencil and accidently spills paint on the photograph. In his hurry to clean up the spill, he ruins the photograph completely. Desperate, the old man replaces the photo with an old print he has in the shop, hoping the man won't notice. When the man arrives to pick up the work, he becomes indignant, and the old man gets nervous. His indignance, ironically, has nothing to do with noticing the picture is not the one he'd dropped off, but rather, the frame was not the one the old man had promised.