What suspicions are cast on George and lennie when they first arrive at the ranch

In Chapter Two, as George prepares to meet the boss, Candy reports that he is a nice enough man although he takes his anger out on the black stable buck, Crooks. Soon enough, the boss enters and asks George and Lennie for their work slips. George attempts to speak for both Lennie and himself, but the boss notices Lennie's silence and questions him directly. Lennie attempts to speak for himself, aping phrases that George has spoken, but sounds completely ridiculous. George tells the boss that Lennie isn't bright, but that he's as strong as a bull and an incredibly hard worker.

The boss wonders why George is willing to take care of Lennie; George tells the boss that Lennie is his cousin and that he promised his mother to look after him. When the boss wonders why they left their last job, George tells him that they were digging a cesspool and completed the work. When the boss leaves, George scolds Lennie for failing to keep completely silent. George admits that he lied about Lennie being his cousin.

Thus, the atmosphere of Chapter Two is immediately hostile and uncomfortable: George suspects that his bed is infested, the Boss suspects that George and Lennie are trying to pull a fast one, Candy is miserable and decrepit, Curley is looking for a fight, Curley's wife is vamping around suspiciously. Lennie, in his instinctive, animalistic way, captures the foreboding tone of the Chapter when he bursts out, "I don't like this place, George. This ain't no good place." Right away, there are several points of inevitable conflict, most of them hinging on the character of Curley, who seems to rub everyone the wrong way.