第 六 章 · Chapter VI

I

He forgot Paul Riesling in an afternoon of not unagreeable details.

After a return to his office, which seemed to have staggered on without

him, he drove a “prospect” out to view a four-flat tenement in the

Linton district. He was inspired by the customer’s admiration of the new

cigar-lighter. Thrice its novelty made him use it, and thrice he hurled

half-smoked cigarettes from the car, protesting, “I _got_ to quit

smoking so blame much!”

Their ample discussion of every detail of the cigar-lighter led them to

speak of electric flat-irons and bed-warmers. Babbitt apologized for

being so shabbily old-fashioned as still to use a hot-water bottle, and

he announced that he would have the sleeping-porch wired at once. He had

enormous and poetic admiration, though very little understanding, of all

mechanical devices. They were his symbols of truth and beauty. Regarding

each new intricate mechanism--metal lathe, two-jet carburetor, machine

gun, oxyacetylene welder--he learned one good realistic-sounding phrase,

and used it over and over, with a delightful feeling of being technical

and initiated.

The customer joined him in the worship of machinery, and they came

buoyantly up to the tenement and began that examination of plastic slate

roof, kalamein doors, and seven-eighths-inch blind-nailed flooring,

began those diplomacies of hurt surprise and readiness to be persuaded

to do something they had already decided to do, which would some day

result in a sale.

On the way back Babbitt picked up his partner and father-in-law, Henry

T. Thompson, at his kitchen-cabinet works, and they drove through South

Zenith, a high-colored, banging, exciting region: new factories of

hollow tile with gigantic wire-glass windows, surly old red-brick

factories stained with tar, high-perched water-tanks, big red trucks

like locomotives, and, on a score of hectic side-tracks, far-wandering

freight-cars from the New York Central and apple orchards, the Great

Northern and wheat-plateaus, the Southern Pacific and orange groves.

They talked to the secretary of the Zenith Foundry Company about an

interesting artistic project--a cast-iron fence for Linden Lane

Cemetery. They drove on to the Zeeco Motor Company and interviewed the

sales-manager, Noël Ryland, about a discount on a Zeeco car for

Thompson. Babbitt and Ryland were fellow-members of the Boosters’ Club,

and no Booster felt right if he bought anything from another Booster

without receiving a discount. But Henry Thompson growled, “Oh, t’ hell

with ’em! I’m not going to crawl around mooching discounts, not from

nobody.” It was one of the differences between Thompson, the

old-fashioned, lean Yankee, rugged, traditional, stage type of American

business man, and Babbitt, the plump, smooth, efficient,

up-to-the-minute and otherwise perfected modern. Whenever Thompson

twanged, “Put your John Hancock on that line,” Babbitt was as much

amused by the antiquated provincialism as any proper Englishman by any

American. He knew himself to be of a breeding altogether more esthetic

and sensitive than Thompson’s. He was a college graduate, he played

golf, he often smoked cigarettes instead of cigars, and when he went to

Chicago he took a room with a private bath. “The whole thing is,” he

explained to Paul Riesling, “these old codgers lack the subtlety that

you got to have to-day.”

This advance in civilization could be carried too far, Babbitt

perceived. Noël Ryland, sales-manager of the Zeeco, was a frivolous

graduate of Princeton, while Babbitt was a sound and standard ware from

that great department-store, the State University. Ryland wore spats, he

wrote long letters about City Planning and Community Singing, and,

though he was a Booster, he was known to carry in his pocket small

volumes of poetry in a foreign language. All this was going too far.

Henry Thompson was the extreme of insularity, and Noël Ryland the

extreme of frothiness, while between them, supporting the state,

defending the evangelical churches and domestic brightness and sound

business, were Babbitt and his friends.

With this just estimate of himself--and with the promise of a discount

on Thompson’s car--he returned to his office in triumph.

But as he went through the corridor of the Reeves Building he sighed,

“Poor old Paul! I got to-- Oh, damn Noël Ryland! Damn Charley McKelvey!

Just because they make more money than I do, they think they’re so

superior. I wouldn’t be found dead in their stuffy old Union Club!

I-- Somehow, to-day, I don’t feel like going back to work. Oh well--”

II

He answered telephone calls, he read the four o’clock mail, he signed

his morning’s letters, he talked to a tenant about repairs, he fought

with Stanley Graff.

Young Graff, the outside salesman, was always hinting that he deserved

an increase of commission, and to-day he complained, “I think I ought to

get a bonus if I put through the Heiler sale. I’m chasing around and

working on it every single evening, almost.”

Babbitt frequently remarked to his wife that it was better to “con your

office-help along and keep ’em happy ’stead of jumping on ’em and poking

’em up--get more work out of ’em that way,” but this unexampled lack of

appreciation hurt him, and he turned on Graff:

“Look here, Stan; let’s get this clear. You’ve got an idea somehow that

it’s you that do all the selling. Where d’ you get that stuff? Where d’

you think you’d be if it wasn’t for our capital behind you, and our

lists of properties, and all the prospects we find for you? All you got

to do is follow up our tips and close the deal. The hall-porter could

sell Babbitt-Thompson listings! You say you’re engaged to a girl, but

have to put in your evenings chasing after buyers. Well, why the devil

shouldn’t you? What do you want to do? Sit around holding her hand? Let

me tell you, Stan, if your girl is worth her salt, she’ll be glad to

know you’re out hustling, making some money to furnish the home-nest,

instead of doing the lovey-dovey. The kind of fellow that kicks about

working overtime, that wants to spend his evenings reading trashy novels

or spooning and exchanging a lot of nonsense and foolishness with some

girl, he ain’t the kind of upstanding, energetic young man, with a

future--and with Vision!--that we want here. How about it? What’s your

Ideal, anyway? Do you want to make money and be a responsible member of

the community, or do you want to be a loafer, with no Inspiration or

Pep?”

Graff was not so amenable to Vision and Ideals as usual. “You bet I want

to make money! That’s why I want that bonus! Honest, Mr. Babbitt, I

don’t want to get fresh, but this Heiler house is a terror. Nobody’ll

fall for it. The flooring is rotten and the walls are full of cracks.”

“That’s exactly what I mean! To a salesman with a love for his

profession, it’s hard problems like that that inspire him to do his

best. Besides, Stan-- Matter o’ fact, Thompson and I are against bonuses,

as a matter of principle. We like you, and we want to help you so you

can get married, but we can’t be unfair to the others on the staff. If

we start giving you bonuses, don’t you see we’re going to hurt the

feeling and be unjust to Penniman and Laylock? Right’s right, and

discrimination is unfair, and there ain’t going to be any of it in this

office! Don’t get the idea, Stan, that because during the war salesmen

were hard to hire, now, when there’s a lot of men out of work, there

aren’t a slew of bright young fellows that would be glad to step in and

enjoy your opportunities, and not act as if Thompson and I were his

enemies and not do any work except for bonuses. How about it, heh? How

about it?”

“Oh--well--gee--of course--” sighed Graff, as he went out, crabwise.

Babbitt did not often squabble with his employees. He liked to like the

people about him; he was dismayed when they did not like him. It was

only when they attacked the sacred purse that he was frightened into

fury, but then, being a man given to oratory and high principles, he

enjoyed the sound of his own vocabulary and the warmth of his own

virtue. To-day he had so passionately indulged in self-approval that he

wondered whether he had been entirely just:

“After all, Stan isn’t a boy any more. Oughtn’t to call him so hard. But

rats, got to haul folks over the coals now and then for their own good.

Unpleasant duty, but-- I wonder if Stan is sore? What’s he saying to

McGoun out there?”

So chill a wind of hatred blew from the outer office that the normal

comfort of his evening home-going was ruined. He was distressed by

losing that approval of his employees to which an executive is always

slave. Ordinarily he left the office with a thousand enjoyable fussy

directions to the effect that there would undoubtedly be important tasks

to-morrow, and Miss McGoun and Miss Bannigan would do well to be there

early, and for heaven’s sake remind him to call up Conrad Lyte soon ’s

he came in. To-night he departed with feigned and apologetic liveliness.

He was as afraid of his still-faced clerks--of the eyes focused on him,

Miss McGoun staring with head lifted from her typing, Miss Bannigan

looking over her ledger, Mat Penniman craning around at his desk in the

dark alcove, Stanley Graff sullenly expressionless--as a parvenu before

the bleak propriety of his butler. He hated to expose his back to their

laughter, and in his effort to be casually merry he stammered and was

raucously friendly and oozed wretchedly out of the door.

But he forgot his misery when he saw from Smith Street the charms of

Floral Heights; the roofs of red tile and green slate, the shining new

sun-parlors, and the stainless walls.

III

He stopped to inform Howard Littlefield, his scholarly neighbor, that

though the day had been springlike the evening might be cold. He went in

to shout “Where are you?” at his wife, with no very definite desire to

know where she was. He examined the lawn to see whether the furnace-man

had raked it properly. With some satisfaction and a good deal of

discussion of the matter with Mrs. Babbitt, Ted, and Howard Littlefield,

he concluded that the furnace-man had not raked it properly. He cut two

tufts of wild grass with his wife’s largest dressmaking-scissors; he

informed Ted that it was all nonsense having a furnace-man--“big husky

fellow like you ought to do all the work around the house;” and

privately he meditated that it was agreeable to have it known throughout

the neighborhood that he was so prosperous that his son never worked

around the house.

He stood on the sleeping-porch and did his day’s exercises: arms out

sidewise for two minutes, up for two minutes, while he muttered, “Ought

take more exercise; keep in shape;” then went in to see whether his

collar needed changing before dinner. As usual it apparently did not.

The Lettish-Croat maid, a powerful woman, beat the dinner-gong.

The roast of beef, roasted potatoes, and string beans were excellent

this evening and, after an adequate sketch of the day’s progressive

weather-states, his four-hundred-and-fifty-dollar fee, his lunch with

Paul Riesling, and the proven merits of the new cigar-lighter, he was

moved to a benign, “Sort o’ thinking about buying a new car. Don’t

believe we’ll get one till next year, but still, we might.”

Verona, the older daughter, cried, “Oh, Dad, if you do, why don’t you

get a sedan? That would be perfectly slick! A closed car is so much more

comfy than an open one.”

“Well now, I don’t know about that. I kind of like an open car. You get

more fresh air that way.”

“Oh, shoot, that’s just because you never tried a sedan. Let’s get one.

It’s got a lot more class,” said Ted.

“A closed car does keep the clothes nicer,” from Mrs. Babbitt; “You

don’t get your hair blown all to pieces,” from Verona; “It’s a lot

sportier,” from Ted; and from Tinka, the youngest, “Oh, let’s have a

sedan! Mary Ellen’s father has got one.” Ted wound up, “Oh, everybody’s

got a closed car now, except us!”

Babbitt faced them: “I guess you got nothing very terrible to complain

about! Anyway, I don’t keep a car just to enable you children to look

like millionaires! And I like an open car, so you can put the top down

on summer evenings and go out for a drive and get some good fresh air.

Besides-- A closed car costs more money.”

“Aw, gee whiz, if the Doppelbraus can afford a closed car, I guess we

can!” prodded Ted.

“Humph! I make eight thousand a year to his seven! But I don’t blow it

all in and waste it and throw it around, the way he does! Don’t believe

in this business of going and spending a whole lot of money to show off

and--”

They went, with ardor and some thoroughness, into the matters of

streamline bodies, hill-climbing power, wire wheels, chrome steel,

ignition systems, and body colors. It was much more than a study of

transportation. It was an aspiration for knightly rank. In the city of

Zenith, in the barbarous twentieth century, a family’s motor indicated

its social rank as precisely as the grades of the peerage determined the

rank of an English family--indeed, more precisely, considering the

opinion of old county families upon newly created brewery barons and

woolen-mill viscounts. The details of precedence were never officially

determined. There was no court to decide whether the second son of a

Pierce Arrow limousine should go in to dinner before the first son of a

Buick roadster, but of their respective social importance there was no

doubt; and where Babbitt as a boy had aspired to the presidency, his son

Ted aspired to a Packard twin-six and an established position in the

motored gentry.

The favor which Babbitt had won from his family by speaking of a new car

evaporated as they realized that he didn’t intend to buy one this year.

Ted lamented, “Oh, punk! The old boat looks as if it’d had fleas and

been scratching its varnish off.” Mrs. Babbitt said abstractedly,

“Snoway talkcher father.” Babbitt raged, “If you’re too much of a

high-class gentleman, and you belong to the _bon ton_ and so on, why,

you needn’t take the car out this evening.” Ted explained, “I didn’t

mean--” and dinner dragged on with normal domestic delight to the

inevitable point at which Babbitt protested, “Come, come now, we can’t

sit here all evening. Give the girl a chance to clear away the table.”

He was fretting, “What a family! I don’t know how we all get to

scrapping this way. Like to go off some place and be able to hear myself

think.... Paul... Maine.... Wear old pants, and loaf, and cuss.” He said

cautiously to his wife, “I’ve been in correspondence with a man in New

York--wants me to see him about a real-estate trade--may not come off

till summer. Hope it doesn’t break just when we and the Rieslings get

ready to go to Maine. Be a shame if we couldn’t make the trip there

together. Well, no use worrying now.”

Verona escaped, immediately after dinner, with no discussion save an

automatic “Why don’t you ever stay home?” from Babbitt.

In the living-room, in a corner of the davenport, Ted settled down to

his Home Study; plain geometry, Cicero, and the agonizing metaphors of

Comus.

“I don’t see why they give us this old-fashioned junk by Milton and

Shakespeare and Wordsworth and all these has-beens,” he protested. “Oh,

I guess I could stand it to see a show by Shakespeare, if they had swell

scenery and put on a lot of dog, but to sit down in cold blood and

_read_ ’em-- These teachers--how do they get that way?”

Mrs. Babbitt, darning socks, speculated, “Yes, I wonder why. Of course I

don’t want to fly in the face of the professors and everybody, but I do

think there’s things in Shakespeare--not that I read him much, but when

I was young the girls used to show me passages that weren’t, really,

they weren’t at all nice.”

Babbitt looked up irritably from the comic strips in the _Evening

Advocate_. They composed his favorite literature and art, these

illustrated chronicles in which Mr. Mutt hit Mr. Jeff with a rotten egg,

and Mother corrected Father’s vulgarisms by means of a rolling-pin. With

the solemn face of a devotee, breathing heavily through his open mouth,

he plodded nightly through every picture, and during the rite he

detested interruptions. Furthermore, he felt that on the subject of

Shakespeare he wasn’t really an authority. Neither the _Advocate-Times_,

the _Evening Advocate_, nor the _Bulletin of the Zenith Chamber of

Commerce_ had ever had an editorial on the matter, and until one of them

had spoken he found it hard to form an original opinion. But even at

risk of floundering in strange bogs, he could not keep out of an open

controversy.

“I’ll tell you why you have to study Shakespeare and those. It’s because

they’re required for college entrance, and that’s all there is to it!

Personally, I don’t see myself why they stuck ’em into an up-to-date

high-school system like we have in this state. Be a good deal better if

you took Business English, and learned how to write an ad, or letters

that would pull. But there it is, and there’s no talk, argument, or

discussion about it! Trouble with you, Ted, is you always want to do

something different! If you’re going to law-school--and you are!-- I

never had a chance to, but I’ll see that you do--why, you’ll want to

lay in all the English and Latin you can get.”

“Oh punk. I don’t see what’s the use of law-school--or even finishing

high school. I don’t want to go to college specially. Honest, there’s

lot of fellows that have graduated from colleges that don’t begin to

make as much money as fellows that went to work early. Old Shimmy

Peters, that teaches Latin in the High, he’s a what-is-it from Columbia

and he sits up all night reading a lot of greasy books and he’s always

spieling about the ‘value of languages,’ and the poor soak doesn’t make

but eighteen hundred a year, and no traveling salesman would think of

working for that. I know what I’d like to do. I’d like to be an aviator,

or own a corking big garage, or else--a fellow was telling me about it

yesterday-- I’d like to be one of these fellows that the Standard Oil

Company sends out to China, and you live in a compound and don’t have to

do any work, and you get to see the world and pagodas and the ocean and

everything! And then I could take up correspondence-courses. That’s the

real stuff! You don’t have to recite to some frosty-faced old dame

that’s trying to show off to the principal, and you can study any

subject you want to. Just listen to these! I clipped out the ads of some

swell courses.”

He snatched from the back of his geometry half a hundred advertisements

of those home-study courses which the energy and foresight of American

commerce have contributed to the science of education. The first

displayed the portrait of a young man with a pure brow, an iron jaw,

silk socks, and hair like patent leather. Standing with one hand in his

trousers-pocket and the other extended with chiding forefinger, he was

bewitching an audience of men with gray beards, paunches, bald heads,

and every other sign of wisdom and prosperity. Above the picture was an

inspiring educational symbol--no antiquated lamp or torch or owl of

Minerva, but a row of dollar signs. The text ran:

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

POWER AND PROSPERITY IN PUBLIC SPEAKING

A Yarn Told at the Club

Who do you think I ran into the other evening at the De Luxe Restaurant?

Why, old Freddy Durkee, that used to be a dead-or-alive shipping clerk

in my old place-- Mr. Mouse-Man we used to laughingly call the dear

fellow. One time he was so timid he was plumb scared of the Super, and

never got credit for the dandy work he did. Him at the De Luxe! And if

he wasn’t ordering a tony feed with all the “fixings” from celery to

nuts! And instead of being embarrassed by the waiters, like he used to

be at the little dump where we lunched in Old Lang Syne, he was bossing

them around like he was a millionaire!

WHAT WE TEACH YOU!

How to address your lodge.

How to give toasts.

How to tell dialect stories.

How to propose to a lady.

How to entertain banquets.

How to make convincing selling-talks.

How to build big vocabulary.

How to create a strong personality.

How to become a rational, powerful and original thinker.

How to be a MASTER MAN!

I cautiously asked him what he was doing. Freddy laughed and said, “Say,

old chum, I guess you’re wondering what’s come over me. You’ll be glad

to know I’m now Assistant Super at the old shop, and right on the High

Road to Prosperity and Domination, and I look forward with confidence to

a twelve-cylinder car, and the wife is making things hum in the best

society and the kiddies getting a first-class education.

“Here’s how it happened. I ran across an ad of a course that claimed to

teach people how to talk easily and on their feet, how to answer

complaints, how to lay a proposition before the Boss, how to hit a bank

for a loan, how to hold a big audience spellbound with wit, humor,

anecdote, inspiration, etc. It was compiled by the Master Orator, Prof.

Waldo F. Peet. I was skeptical, too, but I wrote (just _on a postcard_,

with name and address) to the publisher for the lessons--sent On Trial,

money back if you are not absolutely satisfied. There were eight simple

lessons in plain language anybody could understand, and I studied them

just a few hours a night, then started practising on the wife. Soon

found I could talk right up to the Super and get due credit for all the

good work I did. They began to appreciate me and advance me fast, and

say, old doggo, what do you think they’re paying me now? $6,500 per

year! And say, I find I can keep a big audience fascinated, speaking on

any topic. As a friend, old boy, I advise you to send for circular (no

obligation) and valuable free Art Picture to:--

SHORTCUT EDUCATIONAL PUB. CO.

Desk WA Sandpit, Iowa.

ARE YOU A 100 PERCENTER OR A 10 PERCENTER?

PROF. W. F. PEET

author of the Shortcut Course in Public-Speaking, is easily the

foremost figure in practical literature, psychology & oratory. A

graduate of some of our leading universities, lecturer, extensive

traveler, author of books, poetry, etc., a man with the unique

PERSONALITY OF THE MASTER MINDS, he is ready to give _YOU_ all the

secrets of his culture and hammering Force, in a few easy lessons

that will not interfere with other occupations.

Babbitt was again without a canon which would enable him to speak with

authority. Nothing in motoring or real estate had indicated what a Solid

Citizen and Regular Fellow ought to think about culture by mail. He

began with hesitation:

“Well--sounds as if it covered the ground. It certainly is a fine thing

to be able to orate. I’ve sometimes thought I had a little talent that

way myself, and I know darn well that one reason why a fourflushing old

back-number like Chan Mott can get away with it in real estate is just

because he can make a good talk, even when he hasn’t got a doggone thing

to say! And it certainly is pretty cute the way they get out all these

courses on various topics and subjects nowadays. I’ll tell you, though:

No need to blow in a lot of good money on this stuff when you can get a

first-rate course in eloquence and English and all that right in your

own school--and one of the biggest school buildings in the entire

country!”

“That’s so,” said Mrs. Babbitt comfortably, while Ted complained:

“Yuh, but Dad, they just teach a lot of old junk that isn’t any

practical use--except the manual training and typewriting and basketball

and dancing--and in these correspondence-courses, gee, you can get all

kinds of stuff that would come in handy. Say, listen to this one:”

CAN YOU PLAY A MAN’S PART?

If you are walking with your mother, sister or best

girl and some one passes a slighting remark or uses

improper language, won’t you be ashamed if you can’t

take her part? Well, can you?

We teach boxing and self-defense by mail. Many

pupils have written saying that after a few lessons

they’ve outboxed bigger and heavier opponents. The

lessons start with simple movements practised before

your mirror--holding out your hand for a coin, the

breast-stroke in swimming, etc. Before you realize it

you are striking scientifically, ducking, guarding and

feinting, just as if you had a real opponent before you.

“Oh, baby, maybe I wouldn’t like that!” Ted chanted. “I’ll tell the

world! Gosh, I’d like to take one fellow I know in school that’s always

shooting off his mouth, and catch him alone--”

“Nonsense! The idea! Most useless thing I ever heard of!” Babbitt

fulminated.

“Well, just suppose I was walking with Mama or Rone, and somebody passed

a slighting remark or used improper language. What would I do?”

“Why, you’d probably bust the record for the hundred-yard dash!”

“I _would_ not! I’d stand right up to any mucker that passed a slighting

remark on _my_ sister and I’d show him--”

“Look here, young Dempsey! If I ever catch you fighting I’ll whale the

everlasting daylights out of you--and I’ll do it without practising

holding out my hand for a coin before the mirror, too!”

“Why, Ted dear,” Mrs. Babbitt said placidly, “it’s not at all nice, your

talking of fighting this way!”

“Well, gosh almighty, that’s a fine way to appreciate-- And then suppose

I was walking with _you_, Ma, and somebody passed a slighting remark--”

“Nobody’s going to pass no slighting remarks on nobody,” Babbitt

observed, “not if they stay home and study their geometry and mind their

own affairs instead of hanging around a lot of poolrooms and

soda-fountains and places where nobody’s got any business to be!”

“But gooooooosh, Dad, if they DID!”

Mrs. Babbitt chirped, “Well, if they did, I wouldn’t do them the honor

of paying any attention to them! Besides, they never do. You always hear

about these women that get followed and insulted and all, but I don’t

believe a word of it, or it’s their own fault, the way some women look

at a person. I certainly never’ve been insulted by--”

“Aw shoot, Mother, just suppose you _were_ sometime! Just _suppose_!

Can’t you suppose something? Can’t you imagine things?”

“Certainly I can imagine things! The idea!”

“Certainly your mother can imagine things--and suppose things! Think

you’re the only member of this household that’s got an imagination?”

Babbitt demanded. “But what’s the use of a lot of supposing? Supposing

never gets you anywhere. No sense supposing when there’s a lot of real

facts to take into considera--”

“Look here, Dad. Suppose-- I mean, just--just suppose you were in your

office and some rival real-estate man--”

“Realtor!”

“--some realtor that you hated came in--”

“I don’t hate any realtor.”

“But suppose you _did_!”

“I don’t intend to suppose anything of the kind! There’s plenty of

fellows in my profession that stoop and hate their competitors, but if

you were a little older and understood business, instead of always going

to the movies and running around with a lot of fool girls with their

dresses up to their knees and powdered and painted and rouged and God

knows what all as if they were chorus-girls, then you’d know--and you’d

suppose--that if there’s any one thing that I stand for in the

real-estate circles of Zenith, it is that we ought to always speak of

each other only in the friendliest terms and institute a spirit of

brotherhood and coöperation, and so I certainly can’t suppose and I

can’t imagine my hating any realtor, not even that dirty, fourflushing

society sneak, Cecil Rountree!”

“But--”

“And there’s no If, And or But about it! But if I _were_ going to

lambaste somebody, I wouldn’t require any fancy ducks or

swimming-strokes before a mirror, or any of these doodads and flipflops!

Suppose you were out some place and a fellow called you vile names.

Think you’d want to box and jump around like a dancing-master? You’d

just lay him out cold (at least I certainly hope any son of mine would!)

and then you’d dust off your hands and go on about your business, and

that’s all there is to it, and you aren’t going to have any

boxing-lessons by mail, either!”

“Well but-- Yes-- I just wanted to show how many different kinds of

correspondence-courses there are, instead of all the camembert they

teach us in the High.”

“But I thought they taught boxing in the school gymnasium.”

“That’s different. They stick you up there and some big stiff amuses

himself pounding the stuffin’s out of you before you have a chance to

learn. Hunka! Not any! But anyway-- Listen to some of these others.”

The advertisements were truly philanthropic. One of them bore the

rousing headline: “Money! Money!! Money!!!” The second announced that

“Mr. P. R., formerly making only eighteen a week in a barber shop,

writes to us that since taking our course he is now pulling down $5,000

as an Osteo-vitalic Physician;” and the third that “Miss J. L., recently

a wrapper in a store, is now getting Ten Real Dollars a day teaching our

Hindu System of Vibratory Breathing and Mental Control.”

Ted had collected fifty or sixty announcements, from annual

reference-books, from Sunday School periodicals, fiction-magazines, and

journals of discussion. One benefactor implored, “Don’t be a

Wallflower-- Be More Popular and Make More Money-- You Can Ukulele or Sing

Yourself into Society! By the secret principles of a Newly Discovered

System of Music Teaching, any one--man, lady or child--can, without

tiresome exercises, special training or long drawn out study, and

without waste of time, money or energy, learn to play by note, piano,

banjo, cornet, clarinet, saxophone, violin or drum, and learn

sight-singing.”

The next, under the wistful appeal “Finger Print Detectives Wanted-- Big

Incomes!” confided: “YOU red-blooded men and women--this is the

PROFESSION you have been looking for. There’s MONEY in it, BIG money,

and that rapid change of scene, that entrancing and compelling interest

and fascination, which your active mind and adventurous spirit crave.

Think of being the chief figure and directing factor in solving strange

mysteries and baffling crimes. This wonderful profession brings you into

contact with influential men on the basis of equality, and often calls

upon you to travel everywhere, maybe to distant lands--all expenses

paid. NO SPECIAL EDUCATION REQUIRED.”

“Oh, boy! I guess that wins the fire-brick necklace! Wouldn’t it be

swell to travel everywhere and nab some famous crook!” whooped Ted.

“Well, I don’t think much of that. Doggone likely to get hurt. Still,

that music-study stunt might be pretty fair, though. There’s no reason

why, if efficiency-experts put their minds to it the way they have to

routing products in a factory, they couldn’t figure out some scheme so a

person wouldn’t have to monkey with all this practising and exercises

that you get in music.” Babbitt was impressed, and he had a delightful

parental feeling that they two, the men of the family, understood each

other.

He listened to the notices of mail-box universities which taught

Short-story Writing and Improving the Memory, Motion-picture-acting and

Developing the Soul-power, Banking and Spanish, Chiropody and

Photography, Electrical Engineering and Window-trimming, Poultry-raising

and Chemistry.

“Well--well--” Babbitt sought for adequate expression of his admiration.

“I’m a son of a gun! I knew this correspondence-school business had

become a mighty profitable game--makes suburban real-estate look like

two cents!--but I didn’t realize it’d got to be such a reg’lar

key-industry! Must rank right up with groceries and movies. Always

figured somebody’d come along with the brains to not leave education to

a lot of bookworms and impractical theorists but make a big thing out

of it. Yes, I can see how a lot of these courses might interest you. I

must ask the fellows at the Athletic if they ever realized-- But same

time, Ted, you know how advertisers, I means some advertisers,

exaggerate. I don’t know as they’d be able to jam you through these

courses as fast as they claim they can.”

“Oh sure, Dad; of course.” Ted had the immense and joyful maturity of a

boy who is respectfully listened to by his elders. Babbitt concentrated

on him with grateful affection:

“I can see what an influence these courses might have on the whole

educational works. Course I’d never admit it publicly--fellow like

myself, a State U. graduate, it’s only decent and patriotic for him to

blow his horn and boost the Alma Mater--but smatter of fact, there’s a

whole lot of valuable time lost even at the U., studying poetry and

French and subjects that never brought in anybody a cent. I don’t know

but what maybe these correspondence-courses might prove to be one of the

most important American inventions.

“Trouble with a lot of folks is: they’re so blame material; they don’t

see the spiritual and mental side of American supremacy; they think that

inventions like the telephone and the areoplane and wireless--no, that

was a Wop invention, but anyway: they think these mechanical

improvements are all that we stand for; whereas to a real thinker, he

sees that spiritual and, uh, dominating movements like Efficiency, and

Rotarianism, and Prohibition, and Democracy are what compose our deepest

and truest wealth. And maybe this new principle in education-at-home may

be another--may be another factor. I tell you, Ted, we’ve got to have

Vision--”

“I think those correspondence-courses are terrible!”

The philosophers gasped. It was Mrs. Babbitt who had made this discord

in their spiritual harmony, and one of Mrs. Babbitt’s virtues was that,

except during dinner-parties, when she was transformed into a raging

hostess, she took care of the house and didn’t bother the males by

thinking. She went on firmly:

“It sounds awful to me, the way they coax those poor young folks to

think they’re learning something, and nobody ’round to help them

and-- You two learn so quick, but me, I always was slow. But just the

same--”

Babbitt attended to her: “Nonsense! Get just as much, studying at home.

You don’t think a fellow learns any more because he blows in his

father’s hard-earned money and sits around in Morris chairs in a swell

Harvard dormitory with pictures and shields and table-covers and those

doodads, do you? I tell you, I’m a college man-- I _know_! There is one

objection you might make though. I certainly do protest against any

effort to get a lot of fellows out of barber shops and factories into

the professions. They’re too crowded already, and what’ll we do for

workmen if all those fellows go and get educated?”

Ted was leaning back, smoking a cigarette without reproof. He was, for

the moment, sharing the high thin air of Babbitt’s speculation as though

he were Paul Riesling or even Dr. Howard Littlefield. He hinted:

“Well, what do you think then, Dad? Wouldn’t it be a good idea if I

could go off to China or some peppy place, and study engineering or

something by mail?”

“No, and I’ll tell you why, son. I’ve found out it’s a mighty nice thing

to be able to say you’re a B.A. Some client that doesn’t know what you

are and thinks you’re just a plug business man, he gets to shooting off

his mouth about economics or literature or foreign trade conditions, and

you just ease in something like, ‘When I was in college--course I got my

B.A. in sociology and all that junk--’ Oh, it puts an awful crimp in

their style! But there wouldn’t be any class to saying ‘I got the degree

of Stamp-licker from the Bezuzus Mail-order University!’ You see-- My

dad was a pretty good old coot, but he never had much style to him, and

I had to work darn hard to earn my way through college. Well, it’s been

worth it, to be able to associate with the finest gentlemen in Zenith,

at the clubs and so on, and I wouldn’t want you to drop out of the

gentlemen class--the class that are just as red-blooded as the Common

People but still have power and personality. It would kind of hurt me if

you did that, old man!”

“I know, Dad! Sure! All right. I’ll stick to it. Say! Gosh! Gee whiz! I

forgot all about those kids I was going to take to the chorus rehearsal.

I’ll have to duck!”

“But you haven’t done all your home-work.”

“Do it first thing in the morning.”

“Well--”

Six times in the past sixty days Babbitt had stormed, “You will not ‘do

it first thing in the morning’! You’ll do it right now!” but to-night he

said, “Well, better hustle,” and his smile was the rare shy radiance he

kept for Paul Riesling.

IV

“Ted’s a good boy,” he said to Mrs. Babbitt.

“Oh, he is!”

“Who’s these girls he’s going to pick up? Are they nice decent girls?”

“I don’t know. Oh dear, Ted never tells me anything any more. I don’t

understand what’s come over the children of this generation. I used to

have to tell Papa and Mama everything, but seems like the children

to-day have just slipped away from all control.”

“I hope they’re decent girls. Course Ted’s no longer a kid, and I

wouldn’t want him to, uh, get mixed up and everything.”

“George: I wonder if you oughtn’t to take him aside and tell him

about-- Things!” She blushed and lowered her eyes.

“Well, I don’t know. Way I figure it, Myra, no sense suggesting a lot of

Things to a boy’s mind. Think up enough devilment by himself. But I

wonder-- It’s kind of a hard question. Wonder what Littlefield thinks

about it?”

“Course Papa agrees with you. He says all this--Instruction--is-- He says

’tisn’t decent.”

“Oh, he does, does he! Well, let me tell you that whatever Henry T.

Thompson thinks--about morals, I mean, though course you can’t beat the

old duffer--”

“Why, what a way to talk of Papa!”

“--simply can’t beat him at getting in on the ground floor of a deal,

but let me tell you whenever he springs any ideas about higher things

and education, then I know I think just the opposite. You may not regard

me as any great brain-shark, but believe me, I’m a regular college

president, compared with Henry T.! Yes sir, by golly, I’m going to take

Ted aside and tell him why I lead a strictly moral life.”

“Oh, will you? When?”

“When? When? What’s the use of trying to pin me down to When and Why and

Where and How and When? That’s the trouble with women, that’s why they

don’t make high-class executives; they haven’t any sense of diplomacy.

When the proper opportunity and occasion arises so it just comes in

natural, why then I’ll have a friendly little talk with him

and--and-- Was that Tinka hollering up-stairs? She ought to been asleep,

long ago.”

He prowled through the living-room, and stood in the sun-parlor, that

glass-walled room of wicker chairs and swinging couch in which they

loafed on Sunday afternoons. Outside, only the lights of Doppelbrau’s

house and the dim presence of Babbitt’s favorite elm broke the softness

of April night.

“Good visit with the boy. Getting over feeling cranky, way I did this

morning. And restless. Though, by golly, I will have a few days alone

with Paul in Maine!... That devil Zilla!... But.... Ted’s all right.

Whole family all right. And good business. Not many fellows make four

hundred and fifty bucks, practically half of a thousand dollars, easy as

I did to-day! Maybe when we all get to rowing it’s just as much my

fault as it is theirs. Oughtn’t to get grouchy like I do. But-- Wish I’d

been a pioneer, same as my grand-dad. But then, wouldn’t have a house

like this. I-- Oh, gosh, _I don’t know_!”

He thought moodily of Paul Riesling, of their youth together, of the

girls they had known.

When Babbitt had graduated from the State University, twenty-four years

ago, he had intended to be a lawyer. He had been a ponderous debater in

college; he felt that he was an orator; he saw himself becoming governor

of the state. While he read law he worked as a real-estate salesman. He

saved money, lived in a boarding-house, supped on poached egg on hash.

The lively Paul Riesling (who was certainly going off to Europe to study

violin, next month or next year) was his refuge till Paul was bespelled

by Zilla Colbeck, who laughed and danced and drew men after her plump

and gaily wagging finger.

Babbitt’s evenings were barren then, and he found comfort only in Paul’s

second cousin, Myra Thompson, a sleek and gentle girl who showed her

capacity by agreeing with the ardent young Babbitt that of course he was

going to be governor some day. Where Zilla mocked him as a country boy,

Myra said indignantly that he was ever so much solider than the young

dandies who had been born in the great city of Zenith--an ancient

settlement in 1897, one hundred and five years old, with two hundred

thousand population, the queen and wonder of all the state and, to the

Catawba boy, George Babbitt, so vast and thunderous and luxurious that

he was flattered to know a girl ennobled by birth in Zenith.

Of love there was no talk between them. He knew that if he was to study

law he could not marry for years; and Myra was distinctly a Nice

Girl--one didn’t kiss her, one didn’t “think about her that way at all”

unless one was going to marry her. But she was a dependable companion.

She was always ready to go skating, walking; always content to hear his

discourses on the great things he was going to do, the distressed poor

whom he would defend against the Unjust Rich, the speeches he would make

at Banquets, the inexactitudes of popular thought which he would

correct.

One evening when he was weary and soft-minded, he saw that she had been

weeping. She had been left out of a party given by Zilla. Somehow her

head was on his shoulder and he was kissing away the tears--and she

raised her head to say trustingly, “Now that we’re engaged, shall we be

married soon or shall we wait?”

Engaged? It was his first hint of it. His affection for this brown

tender woman thing went cold and fearful, but he could not hurt her,

could not abuse her trust. He mumbled something about waiting, and

escaped. He walked for an hour, trying to find a way of telling her that

it was a mistake. Often, in the month after, he got near to telling her,

but it was pleasant to have a girl in his arms, and less and less could

he insult her by blurting that he didn’t love her. He himself had no

doubt. The evening before his marriage was an agony, and the morning

wild with the desire to flee.

She made him what is known as a Good Wife. She was loyal, industrious,

and at rare times merry. She passed from a feeble disgust at their

closer relations into what promised to be ardent affection, but it

drooped into bored routine. Yet she existed only for him and for the

children, and she was as sorry, as worried as himself, when he gave up

the law and trudged on in a rut of listing real estate.

“Poor kid, she hasn’t had much better time than I have,” Babbitt

reflected, standing in the dark sun-parlor. “But-- I wish I could’ve had

a whirl at law and politics. Seen what I could do. Well-- Maybe I’ve made

more money as it is.”

He returned to the living-room but before he settled down he smoothed

his wife’s hair, and she glanced up, happy and somewhat surprised.