Kabanata Kabanata 32 · Chapter XXXII

I

His wife was up when he came in. “Did you have a good time?” she

sniffed.

“I did not. I had a rotten time! Anything else I got to explain?”

“George, how can you speak like-- Oh, I don’t know what’s come over you!”

“Good Lord, there’s nothing come over me! Why do you look for trouble

all the time?” He was warning himself, “Careful! Stop being so

disagreeable. Course she feels it, being left alone here all evening.”

But he forgot his warning as she went on:

“Why do you go out and see all sorts of strange people? I suppose you’ll

say you’ve been to another committee-meeting this evening!”

“Nope. I’ve been calling on a woman. We sat by the fire and kidded each

other and had a whale of a good time, if you want to know!”

“Well-- From the way you say it, I suppose it’s my fault you went there!

I probably sent you!”

“You did!”

“Well, upon my word--”

“You hate ‘strange people’ as you call ’em. If you had your way, I’d be

as much of an old stick-in-the-mud as Howard Littlefield. You never want

to have anybody with any git to ’em at the house; you want a bunch of

old stiffs that sit around and gas about the weather. You’re doing your

level best to make me old. Well, let me tell you, I’m not going to

have--”

Overwhelmed she bent to his unprecedented tirade, and in answer she

mourned:

“Oh, dearest, I don’t think that’s true. I don’t mean to make you old, I

know. Perhaps you’re partly right. Perhaps I am slow about getting

acquainted with new people. But when you think of all the dear good

times we have, and the supper-parties and the movies and all--”

With true masculine wiles he not only convinced himself that she had

injured him but, by the loudness of his voice and the brutality of his

attack, he convinced her also, and presently he had her apologizing for

his having spent the evening with Tanis. He went up to bed well pleased,

not only the master but the martyr of the household. For a distasteful

moment after he had lain down he wondered if he had been altogether

just. “Ought to be ashamed, bullying her. Maybe there is her side to

things. Maybe she hasn’t had such a bloomin’ hectic time herself. But I

don’t care! Good for her to get waked up a little. And I’m going to keep

free. Of her and Tanis and the fellows at the club and everybody. I’m

going to run my own life!”

II

In this mood he was particularly objectionable at the Boosters’ Club

lunch next day. They were addressed by a congressman who had just

returned from an exhaustive three-months study of the finances,

ethnology, political systems, linguistic divisions, mineral resources,

and agriculture of Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Austria,

Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Bulgaria. He told them all about those

subjects, together with three funny stories about European

misconceptions of America and some spirited words on the necessity of

keeping ignorant foreigners out of America.

“Say, that was a mighty informative talk. Real he-stuff,” said Sidney

Finkelstein.

But the disaffected Babbitt grumbled, “Four-flusher! Bunch of hot air!

And what’s the matter with the immigrants? Gosh, they aren’t all

ignorant, and I got a hunch we’re all descended from immigrants

ourselves.”

“Oh, you make me tired!” said Mr. Finkelstein.

Babbitt was aware that Dr. A. I. Dilling was sternly listening from

across the table. Dr. Dilling was one of the most important men in the

Boosters’. He was not a physician but a surgeon, a more romantic and

sounding occupation. He was an intense large man with a boiling of black

hair and a thick black mustache. The newspapers often chronicled his

operations; he was professor of surgery in the State University; he went

to dinner at the very best houses on Royal Ridge; and he was said to be

worth several hundred thousand dollars. It was dismaying to Babbitt to

have such a person glower at him. He hastily praised the congressman’s

wit, to Sidney Finkelstein, but for Dr. Dilling’s benefit.

III

That afternoon three men shouldered into Babbitt’s office with the air

of a Vigilante committee in frontier days. They were large, resolute,

big-jawed men, and they were all high lords in the land of Zenith--Dr.

Dilling the surgeon, Charles McKelvey the contractor, and, most

dismaying of all, the white-bearded Colonel Rutherford Snow, owner of

the _Advocate-Times_. In their whelming presence Babbitt felt small and

insignificant.

“Well, well, great pleasure, have chairs, what c’n I do for you?” he

babbled.

They neither sat nor offered observations on the weather.

“Babbitt,” said Colonel Snow, “we’ve come from the Good Citizens’

League. We’ve decided we want you to join. Vergil Gunch says you don’t

care to, but I think we can show you a new light. The League is going to

combine with the Chamber of Commerce in a campaign for the Open Shop,

so it’s time for you to put your name down.”

In his embarrassment Babbitt could not recall his reasons for not

wishing to join the League, if indeed he had ever definitely known them,

but he was passionately certain that he did not wish to join, and at the

thought of their forcing him he felt a stirring of anger against even

these princes of commerce.

“Sorry, Colonel, have to think it over a little,” he mumbled.

McKelvey snarled, “That means you’re not going to join, George?”

Something black and unfamiliar and ferocious spoke from Babbitt: “Now,

you look here, Charley! I’m damned if I’m going to be bullied into

joining anything, not even by you plutes!”

“We’re not bullying anybody,” Dr. Billing began, but Colonel Snow thrust

him aside with, “Certainly we are! We don’t mind a little bullying, if

it’s necessary. Babbitt, the G.C.L. has been talking about you a good

deal. You’re supposed to be a sensible, clean, responsible man; you

always have been; but here lately, for God knows what reason, I hear

from all sorts of sources that you’re running around with a loose crowd,

and what’s a whole lot worse, you’ve actually been advocating and

supporting some of the most dangerous elements in town, like this fellow

Doane.”

“Colonel, that strikes me as my private business.”

“Possibly, but we want to have an understanding. You’ve stood in, you

and your father-in-law, with some of the most substantial and

forward-looking interests in town, like my friends of the Street

Traction Company, and my papers have given you a lot of boosts. Well,

you can’t expect the decent citizens to go on aiding you if you intend

to side with precisely the people who are trying to undermine us.”

Babbitt was frightened, but he had an agonized instinct that if he

yielded in this he would yield in everything. He protested:

“You’re exaggerating, Colonel. I believe in being broad-minded and

liberal, but, of course, I’m just as much agin the cranks and

blatherskites and labor unions and so on as you are. But fact is, I

belong to so many organizations now that I can’t do ’em justice, and I

want to think it over before I decide about coming into the G.C.L.”

Colonel Snow condescended, “Oh, no, I’m not exaggerating! Why the doctor

here heard you cussing out and defaming one of the finest types of

Republican congressmen, just this noon! And you have entirely the wrong

idea about ‘thinking over joining.’ We’re not begging you to join the

G.C.L.--we’re permitting you to join. I’m not sure, my boy, but what if

you put it off it’ll be too late. I’m not sure we’ll want you then.

Better think quick--better think quick!”

The three Vigilantes, formidable in their righteousness, stared at him

in a taut silence. Babbitt waited through. He thought nothing at all, he

merely waited, while in his echoing head buzzed, “I don’t want to

join-- I don’t want to join-- I don’t want to.”

“All right. Sorry for you!” said Colonel Snow, and the three men

abruptly turned their beefy backs.

IV

As Babbitt went out to his car that evening he saw Vergil Gunch coming

down the block. He raised his hand in salutation, but Gunch ignored it

and crossed the street. He was certain that Gunch had seen him. He drove

home in sharp discomfort.

His wife attacked at once: “Georgie dear, Muriel Frink was in this

afternoon, and she says that Chum says the committee of this Good

Citizens’ League especially asked you to join and you wouldn’t. Don’t

you think it would be better? You know all the nicest people belong, and

the League stands for--”

“I know what the League stands for! It stands for the suppression of

free speech and free thought and everything else! I don’t propose to be

bullied and rushed into joining anything, and it isn’t a question of

whether it’s a good league or a bad league or what the hell kind of a

league it is; it’s just a question of my refusing to be told I got to--”

“But dear, if you don’t join, people might criticize you.”

“Let ’em criticize!”

“But I mean _nice_ people!”

“Rats, I-- Matter of fact, this whole League is just a fad. It’s like all

these other organizations that start off with such a rush and let on

they’re going to change the whole works, and pretty soon they peter out

and everybody forgets all about ’em!”

“But if it’s _the_ fad now, don’t you think you--”

“No, I don’t! Oh, Myra, please quit nagging me about it. I’m sick of

hearing about the confounded G.C.L. I almost wish I’d joined it when

Verg first came around, and got it over. And maybe I’d’ve come in to-day

if the committee hadn’t tried to bullyrag me, but, by God, as long as

I’m a free-born independent American cit--”

“Now, George, you’re talking exactly like the German furnace-man.”

“Oh, I am, am I! Then, I won’t talk at all!”

He longed, that evening, to see Tanis Judique, to be strengthened by her

sympathy. When all the family were up-stairs he got as far as

telephoning to her apartment-house, but he was agitated about it and

when the janitor answered he blurted, “Nev’ mind-- I’ll call later,” and

hung up the receiver.

V

If Babbitt had not been certain about Vergil Gunch’s avoiding him, there

could be little doubt about William Washington Eathorne, next morning.

When Babbitt was driving down to the office he overtook Eathorne’s car,

with the great banker sitting in anemic solemnity behind his chauffeur.

Babbitt waved and cried, “Mornin’!” Eathorne looked at him deliberately,

hesitated, and gave him a nod more contemptuous than a direct cut.

Babbitt’s partner and father-in-law came in at ten:

“George, what’s this I hear about some song and dance you gave Colonel

Snow about not wanting to join the G.C.L.? What the dickens you trying

to do? Wreck the firm? You don’t suppose these Big Guns will stand your

bucking them and springing all this ‘liberal’ poppycock you been getting

off lately, do you?”

“Oh, rats, Henry T., you been reading bum fiction. There ain’t any such

a thing as these plots to keep folks from being liberal. This is a free

country. A man can do anything he wants to.”

“Course th’ ain’t any plots. Who said they was? Only if folks get an

idea you’re scatter-brained and unstable, you don’t suppose they’ll want

to do business with you, do you? One little rumor about your being a

crank would do more to ruin this business than all the plots and stuff

that these fool story-writers could think up in a month of Sundays.”

That afternoon, when the old reliable Conrad Lyte, the merry miser,

Conrad Lyte, appeared, and Babbitt suggested his buying a parcel of land

in the new residential section of Dorchester, Lyte said hastily, too

hastily, “No, no, don’t want to go into anything new just now.”

A week later Babbitt learned, through Henry Thompson, that the officials

of the Street Traction Company were planning another real-estate coup,

and that Sanders, Torrey and Wing, not the Babbitt-Thompson Company,

were to handle it for them.

“I figure that Jake Offutt is kind of leery about the way folks are

talking about you. Of course Jake is a rock-ribbed old die-hard, and he

probably advised the Traction fellows to get some other broker. George,

you got to do something!” trembled Thompson.

And, in a rush, Babbitt agreed. All nonsense the way people misjudged

him, but still-- He determined to join the Good Citizens’ League the next

time he was asked, and in furious resignation he waited. He wasn’t

asked. They ignored him. He did not have the courage to go to the League

and beg in, and he took refuge in a shaky boast that he had “gotten away

with bucking the whole city. Nobody could dictate to _him_ how he was

going to think and act!”

He was jarred as by nothing else when the paragon of stenographers, Miss

McGoun, suddenly left him, though her reasons were excellent--she needed

a rest, her sister was sick, she might not do any more work for six

months. He was uncomfortable with her successor, Miss Havstad. What Miss

Havstad’s given name was, no one in the office ever knew. It seemed

improbable that she had a given name, a lover, a powder-puff, or a

digestion. She was so impersonal, this slight, pale, industrious Swede,

that it was vulgar to think of her as going to an ordinary home to eat

hash. She was a perfectly oiled and enameled machine, and she ought,

each evening, to have been dusted off and shut in her desk beside her

too-slim, too-frail pencil points. She took dictation swiftly, her

typing was perfect, but Babbitt became jumpy when he tried to work with

her. She made him feel puffy, and at his best-beloved daily jokes she

looked gently inquiring. He longed for Miss McGoun’s return, and thought

of writing to her.

Then he heard that Miss McGoun had, a week after leaving him, gone over

to his dangerous competitors, Sanders, Torrey and Wing.

He was not merely annoyed; he was frightened. “Why did she quit, then?”

he worried. “Did she have a hunch my business is going on the rocks? And

it was Sanders got the Street Traction deal. Rats--sinking ship!”

Gray fear loomed always by him now. He watched Fritz Weilinger, the

young salesman, and wondered if he too would leave. Daily he fancied

slights. He noted that he was not asked to speak at the annual Chamber

of Commerce dinner. When Orville Jones gave a large poker party and he

was not invited, he was certain that he had been snubbed. He was afraid

to go to lunch at the Athletic Club, and afraid not to go. He believed

that he was spied on; that when he left the table they whispered about

him. Everywhere he heard the rustling whispers: in the offices of

clients, in the bank when he made a deposit, in his own office, in his

own home. Interminably he wondered what They were saying of him. All day

long in imaginary conversations he caught them marveling, “Babbitt? Why,

say, he’s a regular anarchist! You got to admire the fellow for his

nerve, the way he turned liberal and, by golly, just absolutely runs his

life to suit himself, but say, he’s dangerous, that’s what he is, and

he’s got to be shown up.”

He was so twitchy that when he rounded a corner and chanced on two

acquaintances talking--whispering--his heart leaped, and he stalked by

like an embarrassed schoolboy. When he saw his neighbors Howard

Littlefield and Orville Jones together, he peered at them, went indoors

to escape their spying, and was miserably certain that they had been

whispering--plotting--whispering.

Through all his fear ran defiance. He felt stubborn. Sometimes he

decided that he had been a very devil of a fellow, as bold as Seneca

Doane; sometimes he planned to call on Doane and tell him what a

revolutionist he was, and never got beyond the planning. But just as

often, when he heard the soft whispers enveloping him he wailed, “Good

Lord, what have I done? Just played with the Bunch, and called down

Clarence Drum about being such a high-and-mighty sodger. Never catch

_me_ criticizing people and trying to make them accept _my_ ideas!”

He could not stand the strain. Before long he admitted that he would

like to flee back to the security of conformity, provided there was a

decent and creditable way to return. But, stubbornly, he would not be

forced back; he would not, he swore, “eat dirt.”

Only in spirited engagements with his wife did these turbulent fears

rise to the surface. She complained that he seemed nervous, that she

couldn’t understand why he did not want to “drop in at the

Littlefields’” for the evening. He tried, but he could not express to

her the nebulous facts of his rebellion and punishment. And, with Paul

and Tanis lost, he had no one to whom he could talk. “Good Lord, Tinka

is the only real friend I have, these days,” he sighed, and he clung to

the child, played floor-games with her all evening.

He considered going to see Paul in prison, but, though he had a pale

curt note from him every week, he thought of Paul as dead. It was Tanis

for whom he was longing.

“I thought I was so smart and independent, cutting Tanis out, and I need

her, Lord how I need her!” he raged. “Myra simply can’t understand. All

she sees in life is getting along by being just like other folks. But

Tanis, she’d tell me I was all right.”

Then he broke, and one evening, late, he did run to Tanis. He had not

dared to hope for it, but she was in, and alone. Only she wasn’t Tanis.

She was a courteous, brow-lifting, ice-armored woman who looked like

Tanis. She said, “Yes, George, what is it?” in even and uninterested

tones, and he crept away, whipped.

His first comfort was from Ted and Eunice Littlefield.

They danced in one evening when Ted was home from the university, and

Ted chuckled, “What’s this I hear from Euny, dad? She says her dad says

you raised Cain by boosting old Seneca Doane. Hot dog! Give ’em fits!

Stir ’em up! This old burg is asleep!” Eunice plumped down on Babbitt’s

lap, kissed him, nestled her bobbed hair against his chin, and crowed,

“I think you’re lots nicer than Howard. Why is it,” confidentially,

“that Howard is such an old grouch? The man has a good heart, and

honestly, he’s awfully bright, but he never will learn to step on the

gas, after all the training I’ve given him. Don’t you think we could do

something with him, dearest?”

“Why, Eunice, that isn’t a nice way to speak of your papa,” Babbitt

observed, in the best Floral Heights manner, but he was happy for the

first time in weeks. He pictured himself as the veteran liberal

strengthened by the loyalty of the young generation. They went out to

rifle the ice-box. Babbitt gloated, “If your mother caught us at this,

we’d certainly get our come-uppance!” and Eunice became maternal,

scrambled a terrifying number of eggs for them, kissed Babbitt on the

ear, and in the voice of a brooding abbess marveled, “It beats the devil

why feminists like me still go on nursing these men!”

Thus stimulated, Babbitt was reckless when he encountered Sheldon

Smeeth, educational director of the Y.M.C.A. and choir-leader of the

Chatham Road Church. With one of his damp hands Smeeth imprisoned

Babbitt’s thick paw while he chanted, “Brother Babbitt, we haven’t seen

you at church very often lately. I know you’re busy with a multitude of

details, but you mustn’t forget your dear friends at the old church

home.”

Babbitt shook off the affectionate clasp--Sheldy liked to hold hands for

a long time--and snarled, “Well, I guess you fellows can run the show

without me. Sorry, Smeeth; got to beat it. G’day.”

But afterward he winced, “If that white worm had the nerve to try to

drag me back to the Old Church Home, then the holy outfit must have been

doing a lot of talking about me, too.”

He heard them whispering--whispering--Dr. John Jennison Drew,

Cholmondeley Frink, even William Washington Eathorne. The independence

seeped out of him and he walked the streets alone, afraid of men’s

cynical eyes and the incessant hiss of whispering.