 CHAPTER XXIII One. He was busy from March to June. He kept himself from the bewilderment of thinking. His wife and the neighbors were generous. Every evening he played bridge or tended the movies, and the days were blank of face and silent. In June Mrs. Babbitt and Tinka went east to stay with relatives, and Babbitt was free to do. He was not quite sure what. All day long after their departure he thought of the emancipated house in which he could, if he desired, go mad and curse the gods without having to keep up a husbandly front. He considered, I could have a regular party tonight, stay out till two and not do any explaining afterward. Cheers! He telephoned to Virgil Gunch. To Eddie Swanson both of them were engaged for the evening, and suddenly he was bored by having to take so much trouble to be riotous. He was silent at dinner unusually kindly to Ted and Verona, hesitating but not disproving them when Verona stated her opinion of Kenneth Escott's opinion, of Dr. John Genethan's drew opinion, of the opinions of the evolutionists. Ted was working in a grudge to the summer vacation, and he related his daily triumphs, how he had found a crack ball-race, what he had said to the old grouch, what he had said to the foreman about the future of wireless telephony. Ted and Verona went to a dance after dinner. Even the maid was out. Rarely had Babbitt been alone in the house for an entire evening. He was restless. He vaguely wanted something more diverting than the newspaper comic strip to read. He ambled up to Verona's room, sat on her maidenly blue and white bed, humming and grunting in a solid citizen mammoner, as he examined her books, Conrad's Rescue, a volume strangely named Figures of Earth, Poetry, quite irregular poetry Babbitt thought, by Vachal Lindsey, and Essays by H. L. Menken, highly improper essays making fun of the church and all the decencies. He liked none of the books. In them he felt a spirit of rebellion against niceties and solid citizenship. These authors, and he, suppose, they were famous too, did not seem to care about telling a good story which would enable a fellow to forget his troubles. He sighed. He noted a book, The Three Black Pennies, by Joseph Hergim Sharmer. Ah, that was something like it. It would be an adventure story, maybe about counterfeiting detectives sneaking up on the old house at night. He tucked the book under his arm. He clumped downstairs and solemnly began to read under the piano lamp. A twilight-like blue dust sifted into the shallow fold of the thickly wooded hills. It was early October, but a crisping frost had already stamped the maple trees with gold. The Spanish oaks were hung with patches of wine red. The sumac was brilliant in the darkening underbrush, a pattern of wild geese, flying low and unconcerned above the hills, wavered against the serene ashen evening. Howatt Penny, standing in the contemplative clearing of a road, decided that the shifting regular flight would not come close enough for a shot. He had no intention of hunting the geese. With the drooping of day his keenness had evaporated, an habitual indifference strengthened, permeating him. There it was again, discontent, with the good common ways. Babbit laid down the book and listened to the stillness. The inner doors of the house were open. He heard from the kitchen the steady drip of the refrigerator, a rhythm demanding and disquieting. He roamed to the window. The summer evening was foggy and, seen through the wire screen, the street lamps were crosses of pale fire. The whole world was abnormal. While he brooded, Barone and Ted came in and went up to bed. Silence thickened in the sleeping house. He put on his hat in his respectable derby, lighted a cigar, and walked up and down before the house, a portly, worthy, unimaginative figure, humming silver threads among the gold. He casually considered, might call it Paul. Then he remembered. He saw Paul in a jailbird's uniform, but while he agonized he didn't believe the tale. It was part of the unreality of this fog-enchanted evening. If she were here, Myra would be hinting, Isn't it late, Georgie? He tramped in forlorn and unwanted freedom. Fog hit the house now. The world was uncreated, a chaos without turmoil or desire. Through the mist came a man at so favorable a pace that he seemed to dance with fury as he entered the orb of glow from a street lamp. At each step he brandished his stick and brought it down with a crash. His glasses on their broad pretentious ribbon banged against his stomach. Babbit incredulously saw that it was Chum Frank. Frank's stop focused his vision and spoke with gravity. There's another fool, George Babbit, lives for renting house-share's houses. Know who I am? I am trader to poetry. I'm drunk. I'm talking too much. I don't care. Know what I could have been? I could have been a Gene Field or a Gene Whitcomb Riley. Maybe Stevenson. I could have whimsied Magnol main. Listen, listen to this. Just made it up. Glittering summery meadow noise of beetles and bums and respectable boys. Hear that? Was Miss Wendy? I made that up. I don't know what it means. Beginning good verse. Child's garden verses. And would I write? Tripe. Cheer up, poems all tripe. Could have written too late. He darted on with an alarming plunge, seeming always to pitch forward yet never quite falling. Babbit would have been no more astonished and no less had a ghost skipped out of the fog carrying his head. He accepted Frank with vast apathy, he grunted, or boob, and straight away forgot him. He plotted into the house, deliberately went to the refrigerator and rifled it. When Mrs. Babbit was at home this was one of the major household crimes. He stood before the covered laundry tubs eating a chicken leg and half a saucer of raspberry jelly and grumbling over a clammy cold boiled potato. He was thinking it was coming to him that perhaps all life as he knew it and vigorously practice it was futile. That heaven as portrayed by the reverend Dr. John Genison Drew was neither probable nor very interesting, that he hadn't much pleasure out of making money, that it was of doubtful worth to rear children merely that they might rear children who would rear children. What was it all about? What did he want? He blundered into the living room, lay on the davenport, hands behind his head. What did he want? Wealth, social position, travel, servants? Yes, but only incidentally. I give it up, he sighed. But he did know that he wanted the presence of Paul Riesling and from that he stumbled into the admission that he wanted the fairy girl in the flesh, if there had been a woman whom he loved, he would have fled to her, humbled his forehead on her knees. He thought of his stenographer, Ms. McGowan. He thought of the prettiest of the manicure girls at the Hotel Thorn Law Barbershop. As he fell asleep on a davenport he felt that he had found something in life and that he had made a terrifying, thrilling break with everything that was decent and normal. Two. He had forgotten next morning that he was a conscious rebel, but he was irritable in the office and at eleven o'clock, drive of telephone calls and visitors, he did something he had often desired and never dared. He left the office without excuses to those slave drivers his employees and went to the movies. He enjoyed the right to be alone. He came out with a vicious determination to do what he pleased. As he approached the rough next table at the club, everybody laughed. Well, here's the millionaire, said Sidney Finkelstein. Yes, I saw him in his locomobile, said Professor Pumphrey. Gosh, it must be great to be a smart guy like Georgie, moaned Virgil Gunch. He's probably stolen all of Dorchester. I'd hate to leave a poor little defenseless piece of property lying around where he could get his hooks on it. They had, bad but perceived, something on him. Also, they had their kidding clothes on. Ordinarily he would have been delighted at the honor implied in being chafed. But he was suddenly touchy, he grunted. Here's your, maybe I'll take you guys on his office, boys. He was impatient as the jest elaborately rolled on to its denouncement. Of course, he may have been meeting a girl, they said. No, I think he was waiting for his old roommate, Sir Jerusalem Doke. He exploded. Oh, spring it, spring it, you boneheads. What's the great joke? Who rayed George's peeved, snickered Sidney Finkelstein, while a grin went round the table. Gunch revealed a shocking truth. He had seen Babbit coming out of a motion picture theater at noon. They kept it up, with a hundred variations, a hundred guffaws. They said that he had gone to the movies during business hours. He didn't so much mind Gunch, but he was annoyed by Sidney Finkelstein, that briskly red-edded explainer of jokes. He was bothered, too, by the lump of ice in his glass of water. It was too large. It spun round and burned his nose when he tried to drink. He raged at Finkelstein was like that lump of ice. But he won, though. He kept up his banner, till they grew tired of the superlative jest, and turned to the great problems of the day. He reflected, What's the matter with me today, seem like I've got an awful grouch. Only, they talk so darn much. But I better steer careful and keep my mouth shut. As they lighted their cigars, he mumbled, Gotta get back. And on a chorus of, If you will, go spending your mornings with lady ushers at the movies. He escaped. He heard them giggling. He was embarrassed. While he was most bombastically agreeing with the coatman that the weather was warm, he was conscious that he was longing to run childlessly with his troubles to the comfort of the fairy child. Three. Get Miss McGowan after he had finished dictating. He searched for a topic which would warm her office and personality into friendliness. Where you going on your vacation? He purred. Oh, go upstate to a farm. Do you want me to have the sentence least copied this afternoon? Oh, no worry about it. I suppose you have a great time when you get away from us cranks in the office. She rose and gathered her pencils. Oh, nobody's cranky here. I think I can get it copied after I do the letters. She was gone. Babbit utterly repudiated the view that he had been trying to discover how approachable was Miss McGowan. Of course. No, there was nothing doing, he said. Four. Eddie Swanson, the motor-car agent who lived across the street from Babbit, was giving a Sunday supper. His wife, Luetta, young Luetta who loved jazz and music and in clothes and laughter, was at her wildest, she cried. We'll have a real party, as she received the guest. Babbit had uneasily felt that too many men she might be alluring. Now he admitted that to himself she was overwhelmingly alluring. Mrs. Babbit had never quite approved of Luetta. Babbit was glad that she was not here this evening. He insisted on helping Luetta in the kitchen. Taking the chicken croquettes from the warming oven and the lettuce sandwiches from the icebox, he held her hand once and she depressingly didn't notice it. She curled, You're a good little mother's helper, Georgie. Now try it in with that tray and leave it on the side table. He wished that Eddie Swanson would give them cocktails that Luetta would have one. He wanted, oh, he wanted to be one of those bohemians you read about, studio parties, wild, lovely girls who were independent, not necessarily bad, certainly not, but not tame like floral heights. How he'd ever stood it all these years. Eddie did not give them cocktails, true they subbed with mirth, and with several reputation by Orville Jones of any time Luetta wants to come in, sit on my lap, I'll tell this sandwich to beat it. But they were respectable as befitted Sunday evening. Babbit had discreetly preempted a place besides Luetta on the piano bench. While he talked about motors, while he listened with a fixed smile to her account of the film she had seen last Wednesday, while he hoped that she would hurry up and finish her description of the plot, the beauty of the leading man and the luxury of the setting, he studied her. Slim waist, dirtled with raw silk, strong brows, arden eyes, hair parted above a broad forehead. She met youth to him in a charm which saddened. He thought of how valiant a companion she would be on a long motor-tour, exploring mountains, picnicking in a pine grove high above a valley. Her frailness touched him he was angry at Eddie Swanson for the incessant family bickering, all at once he identified Luetta with the fairy girl. He was startled by the conviction that they had always had a romantic attraction for each other. I suppose you're leading a simply terrible life, now you're a widower, she said. You bet, I'm a bad little fellow and proud of it. Some evening you slip Eddie some dope in his coffee and sneak across the road and I'll show you how to mix a cocktail, he roared. Well, now I might do that, you never can tell. Well, whenever you're ready you just hang a towel on the attic window and I'll jump for the gin. Everyone giggled that he's naughtiness. In a pleased way Eddie Swanson stated that he would have a physician analyze his coffee daily. The others were diverted to a discussion of the more agreeable recent murders, but Bamba drew Luetta back to personal things. That's the prettiest dress I ever saw in my life. Do you honestly like it? Like it? When I say I'm going to have Kenneth Escott put a piece in the paper saying that the swellest dressed woman in the U.S. is Mrs. E. Luetta Swanson. Now you stop teasing me, but she beamed. Let's dance a little, George. You've got to dance with me. Even as he protested, oh, you know what a rotten dancer I am. He was lumbering to his feet. I'll teach you. I can teach anybody. Her eyes were moist, her voice was jagged with excitement. He was convinced that he had won her. He clasped her, conscious of her smooth warmth, and solemnly he circled in a heavy version of the one step. He bumped into only one or two people. Gosh, I'm not doing so bad, hitting them up like a regular stage dancer. He gloated, and she answered busily, Yes, yes, I told you I could teach anybody. Don't take such long steps. For a moment he was robbed of confidence with fearful concentration. He sought to keep time to the music, but he was enveloped again by her enchantment. She's got to like me, oh, make her. He bowed. He tried to kiss the lock beside her ear. She mechanically moved her head to avoid it, and mechanically, she murmured, Don't. For a moment he hated her, but after a moment he was as urgent as ever. He danced with Mrs. Orville Jones, but he watched Loretta swooping down the length of the room with her husband. Careful, you're getting foolish. He cautioned himself. The while he hoped and bent his solid knees and dalliance with Mrs. Jones and, to that worldly lady rumpled, He is hot. Without reason he thought of Paul in that shadowy place where men never dance. I'm crazy tonight. Better go home. He worried, but he left Mrs. Jones and dashed to Loretta's lovety side, demanding. Next is mine. Oh, I'm so hot. I'm not going to dance this one. Then, boldly, come out and sit on the porch and we'll get all nice and cool. Well, in the tender darkness with the clamor in the house behind them, he resolutely took her hand. She squeezed his once, then relaxed. Loretta, I think you're the nicest thing I know. Well, I think you're very nice. Do you? You got to like me. I'm so lonely. Well, you'll be all right when your wife comes home. No, I'm always lonely. She clasped her hands under a chin so that he dared not touch her. He sighed. When I feel punk and he was about to bring in the tragedy of Paul, but that was too sacred for even the diplomacy of love. When I get tired at the office and everything, I like to look across the street and think of you. Do you know I dreamed of you one time? Was it a nice dream? Lovely. Well, they say dreams go by opposites. Now I must run in. She was on her feet. Oh, don't go in yet. Please, Loretta. Yes, I must. I have to look out for my guests. Let them look out for themselves. I couldn't do that. She carelessly tapped his shoulder and slipped away. But after two minutes of shamed and childish longing to sneak home, he was snorting. Certainly I wasn't trying to get chummy with her. No, there was nothing doing all the time. And he ambled in to dance with Mrs. Orville Jones and to avoid Loretta. Virtuously and conspicuously. End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of Babbitt This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Mike Vendetti MikeVendetti.com Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis Chapter 24 1 His visit to Paul was as unreal as his night of fog and questioning. Unsing he went through prison corridors, stinking of carbolic acid, to a room lined with pale yellow satis pierced in rosettes, like the shoe store benches he had known as a boy. The guard led Paul in, above his uniform of linty gray, Paul's face was pale and without expression. He moved timorously in response to the guard's commands. He meekly pushed Babbitt's gifts of tobacco and magazines across the table to the guard for examination. He had nothing to say, but, oh, I'm getting used to it. And I'm working in the tailor shop. Stuff hurts my fingers. Babbitt knew that in this place of death Paul was already dead. And as he pondered on the train home, something in his own self seemed to have died. A loyal and vigorous faith in the goodness of the world. A fear of public disfavor, a pride in success. He was glad that his wife was away. He admitted without justifying it. He did not care. Two. Her card read, Mrs. Daniel Judek. Babbitt knew of her as the widow of a wholesale paper-dealer. She must have been forty or forty-two, but he thought her younger when he saw her in the office that afternoon. She had come to inquire about renting an apartment. And he took her away from the unskilled girl accountant. He was nervously attracted by her smartness. She was a slender woman in a black Swiss frock, dotted with white, a cool-looking graceful flock. A broad black hat shaded her face. Her eyes were lustrous. Her soft chin of an agreeable plumpness. And her cheeks and even rows. Babbitt wondered afterward if she was made up. But no man living knew less of such arts. She sat revolving her violet parasail. Her voice was appealing without being coy. I wonder if you can help me. Be delighted. I've looked everywhere and I want a little flat, just a bedroom or perhaps two, and sitting room and kitchenette and bath. But I want one that really has some charm to it. Not these dentsy places or these new ones with terrible gaudy chandeliers. And I can't pay so dreadfully much. My name is Tannis Judiek. I think maybe I've got just the thing for you. Would you like to chase around and look at it now? Yes, I have a couple of hours. In the new Cavendash apartments Babbitt had a flat which she had been holding for Sidney Finkelstein. But at the thought of driving beside this agreeable woman he threw over his friend Finkelstein and, under with a note of gallantry, proclaimed, I'll let you see what I can do. He dusted the seat of the car for her and twice he risked death in showing off his driving. You do know how to handle a car, she said. He liked her voice. There was, he thought, music in it and a hint of culture, not a bouncing giggle like Louis Swanson's. He boasted, you know, there's a lot of these fellows that are so scared and drive so slow that they get in everybody's way. The safest driver is a fellow that knows how to handle his machine and yet isn't scared to speed up when it's necessary, don't you think so? Oh, yes. I bet you drive like a whiz. Oh, no. I mean, not really. Of course, we had a car, I mean, before my husband passed on, and I used to make believe drive it, but I don't think any woman ever learns to drive like a man. Well, now there's some mighty good women drivers. Of course, these women that try to imitate men and play golf and everything and ruin their complexions and spoil their hands. That's so I never did like these manish females. I mean, of course, I admire them dreadfully and I feel so weak and useless beside them. Oh, rats, no. I bet you play the piano like a whiz. Oh, no. I mean, not really. Well, I bet you do. He glanced at her smooth hands or diamond and ruby rings. She caught the glance, snuggled her hands together with the kidnish curving of slim white fingers which delighted him and yearned. I do love to play. I mean, I like to drum on the piano, but I haven't had any real training, Mr. Judig. Used to say I would have been a good pianist if I had had any training, but then I guess he was just flattering me. I'll bet he wasn't. I bet you've got temperament. Oh, do you like music, Mr. Babbitt? You bet I do. Only I don't know as I care so much for all this classical stuff. Oh, I do. I just love Chopin in all fields. Do you, honest? Well, of course. I go to lots of these high-brow concerts, but I do like a good jazz orchestra right up on its toes, with the fellows that plays the bass fiddle, spinning around and beating it up with the bow. Well, I know. I do love good dance music. I love to dance. Don't you, Mr. Babbitt? Sure, you bet. Not that I'm very darn good at it, though. Oh, I'm sure you are. You ought to let me teach you. I can teach anybody to dance. Would you give me a lesson sometime? Indeed I would. Better be careful, or I'll be taking you up on that proposition. I'll be coming up to your flat and making you give me that lesson. Yes, she was not offended, but she was non-committal. He warned himself, having said now you chump, don't go make it a fool of yourself again. And with loftiness he discoursed. I wish I could dance like some of those young fellows, but I'll tell you, I feel it's a man's place to take a full. You might say creative share of the world's work in mold conditions and have something to show for his life. Don't you think so? Oh, I do. And so I have to sacrifice some of the things I might like to tackle, though I do, by golly. Play about a good game of golf as the next fellow. Oh, I'm sure you do. Are you married? Yeah. And, uh, of course, official duties. I'm the Vice President of the Boosters Club, and I'm running one of the committees of the State Association of Real Estate Boards, and it makes a lot of work and responsibility and practically no gratitude for it. Oh, I know. Public men never do get proper credit. They looked at each other with a high degree of mutual respect, and at the Cavendash apartments he helped her out in a courtly manner, waved his hand at the houses though he were, presenting it to her, and ponderously ordered the elevator boy to hustle and get the keys. She stood close to him in the elevator, and he was stirred but cautious. It was a pretty flat of white woodwork and soft blue walls. Mrs. Udeek gushed with pleasure as she agreed to take it, and as they walked down the hall to the elevator, she touched his sleeve, caroling, oh, I'm so glad I went to you. It's such a privilege to meet a man who really understands. Oh, the flat some people have showed me. He had a sharp, instinctive belief that he could put his arm around her, but he rebuked himself, and with excessive politeness, he saw her to the car, drove her home, all the way back to his office he raged. Glad I had some sense for once. Curse of how wish I'd tried. She's odd. Darling. Quarker, regular charmer, lovely eyes and darling lips and that trim waist never gets sloppy, like some women. No, no, no. She's a real cultured lady. One of the brightest little women I've met these many moons. Understands about the public topics and, darn it, why didn't I try? Tannis. Three. He was harassed and puzzled by it, but he found that he was turning toward youth, as you. The girl who especially disturbed him, though he had never spoken to her, was the last manicure girl on the right in the Pompanean Barbershop. She was small, swift, black-haired, smiling. She was nineteen, perhaps, or twenty. She wore thin, salmon-colored blouses which exhibited her shoulders and her black ribbon camisoles. He went to the Pompane for his fortnightly hair-trim. As always, he felt disloyal at deserting his neighbor, the Reeves Building Barbershop. Then, for the first time, he overthrew his sense of guilt. Dog-gone it. I don't have to go here if I don't want to. I don't own the Reeves Building. These barbers got nothing on me. I'll dog-gone well get my haircut where I dog-gone well want to. Don't want to hear anything more about it. I'm through standing by people unless I want to. Doesn't get you anywhere and I'm through. The Pompanean Barbershop was in the basement of the Hotel Thornley. Largest and most dynamically modern hotel in Zenith. Curving marble steps with a rail of polished brass led from the hotel lobby down to the barbershop. The interior was of black and white crimson tiles with a sensational ceiling of burnished gold and a fountain in which a massive nymph forever emptied a scarlet cornucopia. Forty barbers and nine manicure girls worked desperately and at the door six colored porters lurked to greet the customers, to care reverently for their hats and collars, to lead them to a place of waiting where, on a carpet like a tropic aisle, in the stretch of white stone floor were a dozen leather chairs and a table heaped with magazines. Babbit's porter was an obsequious gray-haired negro who did him and honor highly esteemed in the land of Zenith, greeted him by name. Yet Babbit was unhappy. His bright particular manicure girl was engaged. She was doing the nails of an overdressed man and giggling with him. Babbit hated him. He thought of waiting but to stop the powerful system of the Pompanean was inconceivable and he was instantly waved into a chair. About him was luxury, rich and delicate. The Vaudrey was having a violet ray facial treatment, the next an oil shampoo, boys wheeled about miraculous electrical massage machines. The barbers snatched steaming towels from a machine like a howitzer of polished nickel and disdainfully flung them away after a second shoes. On the vast marble shelf facing the chairs were hundreds of tonics, amber, ruby, and emerald. It was flattering to Babbit to have two personal slaves at once, the barber and the boot-black. He would have been completely happy if he could have had the manicure girl. The barber snipped at his hair and asked his opinion of the Har of the Grace races, the baseball season, and Mayor Prout, the young negro boot-black, hummed the camp-meeting blues and polished in rhythm to his tune, drawing the shiny shoe-rag so taut at each stroke that it snapped like a banjo string. The barber was an excellent salesman. He made Babbit feel rich and important by his manner of inquiring. What's your favorite tonic, sir? Have you time today for a facial massage? Your scalp was a little tight. Shall I give you a scalp massage? Babbit's best thrill was the shampoo. The barber made his hair creamy with thick soap, then his Babbit bent over the bowl, muffled in towels, drenched it with hot water, which prickled along his scalp, and at last ran the water ice-cold. At the shock, the sudden burning cold on his skull, Babbit's heart thumped, his chest heaved, and his spine was an electric wire. It was a sensation which broke the monotony of life. He looked grandly about the shop as he sat up. The barber, obsequiously, rubbed his wet hair and bound it in a towel as in a turban, so that Babbit resembled a plump pink califf in a ingenious and adjustable throne. The barber begged, in the manner of one who was a good fellow yet was overwhelmed by the splendors of the califf, how about a little El Dorado oil rub, sir? Very beneficial to the scalp, sir. Didn't I give you one the last time? He hadn't, but Babbit agreed, well, all right. With quaking eagerness, he saw that his manicure girl was free. Oh, Lord, I guess I'll have a manicure after all. He droned and excitedly watched her coming dark-haired, smiling, tender little. The manicuring would have to be finished at her table, and he would be able to talk to her without the barber listening. He waited contentedly, not trying to peep at her. While she filed his nails and the barber shaved him and smeared on his burning cheeks all the interesting mixtures, which the pleasant minds of barbers have devised through the revolving ages. When the barber was done and he sat opposite the girl at her table, he admired the marble slab of it, admired the sunken set bowl, with its tiny silver taps, and admired himself for being able to frequent so costly a place. When she withdrew his wet hand from the bowl, it was so sensitive from the warm, soapy water that he was abnormally aware of the clasp of her firm little paw. He delighted in the pickness and glossiness of her nails. Her hands seemed to him more adorable than Mrs. Judix, thin fingers and more elegant. He had a certain estacy in the pain when she gnawed at the cuticle of his nails with a sharp knife. He struggled not to look at the outline of her young bosom and her shoulders, the more apparent under a film of pink chiffon. He was conscious of her as an exquisite thing, and when he tried to impress his personality on her, he spoke as awkwardly as a country boy at his first party. Uh, kinda hot to be working today. Oh, yes, it is hot. You cut your own nails last time, didn't you? Yes, I guess I must have. You always ought to get a manicure. Yes, maybe that's so. I, uh, there's nothing look so nice as nails that are looked after good. I always think that's the best way to spot a real gent. There was an auto salesman in here yesterday that claimed you could always tell a fellow's class by the car he drove, but I says to him, don't be silly. And he says the Weisenheimers grab a look and a fellow's nails when they want to tell if he's a tinhorn or real gent. Eh, maybe there's something to that, of course that is. With a pretty kitty like you, a man can't help coming to get his mitts done. Yeah, I may be a kid, but I'm a wise bird, and I know nice folks when I see them. I can read character at a glance, and I never talk so frank with a fellow if I couldn't see he was a nice fellow. She smiled. Her eyes seemed to him as gentle as April pools. With great seriousness, he informed himself that there was some rough-necks who would think that just because a girl was a manicure girl and maybe not awful well educated, she was no good. But for him, he was a Democrat and understood people. And he stood by the assertion that this was a fine girl, a good girl, but not too uncomfortably good. He inquired in a voice quick with sympathy. Eh, I suppose you have a lot of fellows who try to get fresh with you. Say, gee, I do. Say, listen, there's some of these cigar store sports that think because a girl's working in a barbershop they can get away with anything. The things they say. But believe me, I know how to hop these birds. I just give them the north and south and ask them, hey, who do you think you're talking to? And they fade away like love's young nightmare and oh, don't you want a box of nail paste? It will keep your nails as shiny as when first manicured, harmless to apply and last for days. Sure, I'll try some. Say, say, it's funny I've been coming in here ever since the shop opened and, with arch surprise, I don't believe I know your name. Don't you? Mine. That's funny. I don't know yours. Now, you quit kidding me. What's the nice little name? Well, it ain't so darn nice. It's kind of a kike. But my folks eat kikes. My papa's papa was a nobleman in Poland. And there was a gentleman in here one day. He was kind of a count or something. Kind of a no-count, I guess that's what you mean. Who's telling us stories, Marnie? And he said he knew my papa's folks in Poland, and they had a dandy big house right on the lake, duffly. Maybe you don't believe it? Sure, no, really, sure I do. Why not? Don't think I'm kidding you, honey, but every time I've noticed you, I've said to myself, that kid has blue blood in her veins. Didn't you? Honest? Honest I did. Well, come on. Not only are we friends, what's Darling's name? Ina Putnik. It ain't so much a name. I always say ma, ma. Why didn't you name me Dolores or something with some class in it? Well, now I think it's a scrumptious name, Ida. And I bet I know your name. Well, now, not necessarily, of course. Oh, it isn't so specially well-known. Aren't you, Mr. Soundheim, the Travels for the Crackerjack Kitchen Company? I am not. I'm Mr. Babbitt, the real estate broker. Oh, excuse me, of course you mean here in Zenith. Yep, with the bristness of one whose feelings have been hurt. Oh, sure, I've rendered ads. They're swell. Well, you might have read about my speeches. Of course I have. I don't get much time to read, but I guess you think I'm an awfully silly little nit. I think you're a little darling. Well, there's one nice thing about this job. It gives a girl a chance to meet some awfully nice gentleman and improve her mind with conversation. And you get so you can read a guy's character at the first glance. Look here, Ida. Please don't think I'm getting fresh. He was hotly reflecting that it would be humiliating to be rejected by this child and dangerous to be accepted if he took her to dinner, if he were seen by centrist friends. But he went on ardently. Don't think I'm getting fresh if I suggest it would be nice for us to go out and have a little dinner together some evening. I don't know as I ought to, but my gentleman friends always wanted me to take me out. But maybe I could, tonight. Four. There was no reason he reassured himself why he shouldn't have a quiet dinner with a poor girl who would benefit by association with an educated and mature person like himself. But, lest someone see them and not understand, he would take her to Biddlemeyer's Inn, on the outskirts of the city. They would have a pleasant drive this hot lonely evening, and he might hold her hand. No? He wouldn't even do that. Ida was complacent, and her bare shoulder showed it only too clearly. But he'd be hanged if he'd make love to her merely because she expected it. Then his car broke down. Something had happened to the ignition. And he had to have the car this evening. Furiously he tested the spark plugs. Stared at the commutator, his angry flower did not seem to stir the sulky car, and in disgrace it was hauled off to a garage. With a renewed thrill he thought of a taxi-cam. There was something at once wealthy and, interestingly, wicked about a taxi-cam. But when he met her on a corner two blocks from the hotel Thornley, she said, a taxi? Well, I thought you owned a car. I do. Of course I do. But it's out of commission tonight. She remarked as one who had heard that tale before. All the way out to Biddlemeyer's Inn, he tried to talk as an old friend. But he could not pierce the wall of her words. With interminable indignation she narrated her retorts to the fresh-head barber, and drastic things she would do to him if he persisted in saying that she was better at gassing than hoof-pairing. At Biddlemeyer's Inn they were unable to get anything to drink. The head waiter refused to understand who George F. Babbitt was. They sat steaming before a vast mixed grill and made conversation about baseball. When he tried to hold Ida's hand, she said with bright friendliness, careful, that French waiter is rubbering. But they came out into a treacherous summer night. The air lazy and a little moon above transfigured maples. Let's drive some other place where we can get a drink and dance, he demanded. Sure, some other night, but I promised mine be home early tonight. Rats, too nice to go home. I'd just love to, but mom would give me fits. He was trembling. She was everything that was young and exquisite. He put his arm about her. She snuggled against his shoulder, unafraid, and he was triumphant. Then she ran down the steps of the inn singing, Come on, Georgie, we'll have a nice drive and get cool. It was the night of lovers. All along the highway into Xenath under the low and gentle moon, motors were parked and dim figures were clasping revelry. He held out hungry hands to Ida, and when she padded them he was grateful. There was no sense of struggle and transition. He kissed her, and simply she responded to his kiss. They too behind the stolid back of the chauffeur. Her hat fell off, and she broke from his embrace to reach for it. Oh, let it be, he implored. Huh, my hat, not a chance! He waited till she had pinned it on, then his arm sank about her. She drew away from it, and said with maternal soothing, Now don't be a silly boy. Mustn't make it a mommy's gold. Just sit back, dearie, and see what a swell night it is. If you're a good boy, maybe I'll kiss you when we say good night. Now, give me a cigarette. He was solicitous about lighting her cigarette and inquiring as to her comfort. Then he sat as far from her as possible. He was cold with failure. No one could have told Babbit that he was a fool with more vigor, precision, and intelligence than he himself displayed. He reflected that from the standpoint of Reverend Dr. John Jenison Drew he was a wicked man, and from the standpoint of Ms. Ida Putnik, an old borer who had to be endured, as the penalty attached to eating a large dinner. Dearie, you aren't going to get peevish, are you? She spoke pertly. He wanted to spank her. He brooded. I don't have to take anything off this gutter pup, darn immigrant. Well, let's get it over as quick as we can and sneak home and kick ourselves for the rest of the night. He snorted, Meet peevish? Why, you baby? Why should I be peevish? Now listen, Ida. Listen to Uncle George. I want to put you wise about this scrapping with your head barber all the time. I've had a lot of experience with employees, and let me tell you it doesn't pay to antagonize. At the drab wooden house in which she lived, he said good night briefly and amateurly. But as the taxi cab drove off, he was praying. Oh, my God. End of Chapter 24 Chapter 25 of Babbitt This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Mike Vendetti MikeVendetti.com Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis Chapter 25 1 He awoke to stretch cheerfully as he listened to the sparrows, then to remember that everything was wrong. That he was determined to go astray and not in the least enjoying the process. Why, he wondered, should he be in rebellion? What was it all about? Why not be sensible, stop all this idiotic running around, and enjoy himself with his family, his business, the fellows at the club? What was he getting out of rebellion? Misery and shame? The shame of being treated as an offensive small boy by a rangamuffin like Ida Putnik? And yet, always he came back to, and yet, whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd. Only, he assured himself, he was through with chasing after girls. By noontime, he was not so sure even if that, if in Miss McGowan, Loretta Swanson, and Ida he had failed to find the lady kind and lovely, it did not prove that she did not exist. He was haunted by the ancient thought that somewhere must exist the not impossible, she who would understand him, value him, and make him happy. 2 Mrs. Babbitt returned in August. On her previous absences he had missed her reassuring buzz and her arrival he had made of feet. Now, though he dared not hurt her by letting a hint appear in his letters, he was sorry that she was coming before he had found himself, and he was embarrassed by the need of meeting her by and looking joyful. He loitered down to the station, he studied the summer resort posters, lest he have to speak to acquaintances and expose his uneasiness. But he was well-trained. When the train clanked in, he was out on a cement platform, peering into the chair-cars, and as he saw her in the line of passengers moving toward the vestibule, he waved his hat. At the door he embraced her and announced, Well, well, well, well, by golly you look fine, you look fine. Then he was aware of Tinka, here was something, this child, with her absurd little nose and lively eyes that loved him, believed him great and as he clasped her, lifted and held her till she squealed, he was for the moment come back to his old steady self. Take a sad beside him in the car, with one hand on the steering wheel pretending to help him drive, and he shouted back to his wife, I'll bet the kid will be the best chauffeur in the family. She holds the wheel like an old professional. All the while he was dreading the moment when he would be alone with his wife, and she would patiently expect him to be ardent. 3. There was about the house an unofficial theory that he was to take his vacation alone, to spend a week or ten days in Katawaba. But he was nagged by the memory that a year ago he had been with Paul in Maine. He saw himself returning, finding peace there, and the presence of Paul in a life primitive and heroic. Like a shock came the thought that he actually could go. Only he couldn't really. He couldn't leave his business in Myra, would think it's sort of funny his going away off there alone. Of course he decided to do what every damn pleased from now on. But still, go way off to Maine. He went after lengthy meditations. With his wife since it was inconceivable to explain that he was going to seek Paul's spirit into wilderness, he frugally employed the life prepared over a year ago and scarcely used it at all. He said that he had to see a man in New York on business. He could not have explained even to himself why he withdrew from the bank several hundred more dollars than he needed. Nor why he kissed Tinka so tenderly and cried, God bless you, baby. From the train he waved to her till she was but a scarlet spot beside the brown bulkier presence of Mrs. Babbitt. At the end of a steel and cement aisle, ending in vast bar gates, with melancholy he looked back at the last suburb of Zenith. All the way north he pictured the main guides, simple and strong and daring, jolly as they played stunt poker in their unsealed jack, wise in woodcraft as they trapped the forest and shot the rapids. He particularly remembered Joe Paradise, half Yankee, half Indian. If he could but take up a backwards claim with a man like Joe, work hard with his hands, be free and noisy in a flannel shirt and never come back to this dull decency. Or like a trapper in a Northern Canada movie, plunge through the forest, make camp in the Rockies, a grim and wordless caveman. Why not? He could do it. There'd be enough money at home for the family to live on till Verona was married and Ted self-supporting. Oh, Henry T. would look out for them. Honestly. Why not really live? He longed for it, admitted that he longed for it, then almost believed that he was going to do it. Whenever common sense snorted, nonsense. Folks don't run away from decent families and partners just simply don't do it. That's all. Then Babbitt answered, pleadingly, well, it wouldn't take any more nerve than for Paul to go to jail and, Lord, how I'd like to do it. Mockison's six-gun frontier town gamblers sleep under the store. Be a regular man. But the he-men, like Joe Paradise, garsh. So he came to Maine again, stood on the wharf before the camp hotel. Again spat heroically into the delicate and shivering water. While the pines rustled, mountains glowed and a trout leaped and fell in a sliding circle. He hurried to the guy-chak, as to his real home, his real friends, long missed. They would be glad to see him. They would stand up and shout, Why, here's Mr. Babbitt. He ain't one of these ordinary sports. He's a real guy. In their boarded and rather littered cabin the guys sat about the greasy table playing stud poker with greasy cards. Half a dozen wrinkled men in old trousers and easy-felt hats. They glanced up and nodded. Joe Paradise swore to aging man with a big mustache, but how do, back again? Silence except for the clatter of chips. Babbitt stood beside them very lonely. He hinted after a period of highly concentrated playing. Yes, I might take a hand, Joe. Sure, sit in. How many chips do you want? Let's see, you were here with your wine-flasher here, aren't you? Said Joe Paradise. That was all of Babbitt's welcome to the old home. He played for half an hour before he spoke again. His head was reeking with the smoke of pipes and cheap cigars, and he was weary of pairs and four fleshes. Resentful of the way in which they ignored him, he flung at Joe. Working now? Nope. Like to guide me for a few days? Well, just soon I ain't engaged all night a week. Only thus did Joe recognize the friendship Babbitt was offering him. Babbitt paid up his losses and left the shack brothers childlessly. Joe raised his head from the coils of smoke like a seal rising from surf, grunted. I'll go round tomorrow and dive down to his three aces. Neither in the voiceless cabin fragrant with planks of new-cut pine, nor along the lake, nor in the sunset clouds which presently eddied behind the lavender misted mountains, could Babbitt find a spirit of Paul as a reassuring presence. He was so lonely that after supper he stopped to talk with an ancient old lady, a gasping and steadily discoursing old lady, by the stove in the hotel office. He told her of Ted's presumable future triumphs in the State University and of Tinka's remarkable vocabulary till he was homesick for the home he had left forever. Through the darkness, through that northern pine-walled silence, he blundered down to the lakefront and found a canoe. There was no paddle in it with a board sitting awkwardly in midships and poking at the water rather than paddling. He made his way far out on the lake. The lights of the hotel and the cottages became yellow dots. The cluster of glowworms at the base of Sasham Mountain, larger and even more impenderable, was the mountain in the star-filtered darkness, and the lake a limitless pavement of black marble. He was dwarfed and dumb and a little odd, but that insignificance freed him from the pomposities of being Mr. George F. Babadavzena. Saddened freed his heart. Now he was conscious of the presence of Paul, fancied him, rescued from prison from Zilia, and the brisk exactitudes of the tar-roofing business. Playing his violin at the end of the canoe, he vowed, I will go on, I'll never go back. Now that Paul's out of it, I don't want to see any of those damn people again. I was a fool to get sore because Joe Paradise didn't jump up and hug me. He's one of these woodsmen, too wise to go yelping and talking your arm off like a city man. But get him back in the mountains, out on the trail? That's real living. Four. Joe reported Babad's cabin at nine the next morning. Babad greeted him as a fellow caveman. Well, Joe, how'd you feel about hitting a trail and getting away from these darn soft summaries and women and all? All right, Mr. Babbit. What do you say we go over to Boxcarpond? They tell me the shack there isn't being used, camp out. Well, all right, Mr. Babbit, but it's nearer to the socket pond and you can get just about as good fishing there. No, I want to get out into real wilds. Well, all right. We'll put the old packs on our backs and get into the woods and really hike. I think maybe it would be easier to go by water through Lake Chowg. We can go all the way by motorboat, flat-bottom boat with never-nude. No, sir, bust up the quiet with a chugging motor, not on your life. You just throw a pair of socks in the old pack and tell them what you want for eats. I'll be ready as soon as you are. Most of the sports go by boat, Mr. Babbit. It's a long walk. Look here, Joe. Are you objecting to walking? Oh, no, I guess I can do it. But I haven't trapped for sixteen years. Most of the sports go by boat, but I can do it if you say so. I guess Joe walked away in sadness. Babbit had recovered from his touchy wrath. Before Joe returned, he pictured him as warming up and telling the most entertaining stories. But Joe had not yet warmed up when they took the trail. He persistently kept behind Babbit. And, however much his shoulders ached from the pack, however sorely he panted, Babbit could hear his guide panting equally. But the trail was satisfying, a path brown with pine needles and rough with roots, among the balsams and ferns of sudden groves of white birch. He became credulous again and rejoiced in sweating. When he stopped to rest, he chuckled. Guess we're hitting it up pretty good for a couple old birds, huh? Uh-huh, admitted Joe. This is a mighty pretty place. Look, you can see the lake down through the trees. I tell you, Joe, you don't appreciate how lucky you are to live in the woods like this, instead of in a city with trolleys grinding with typewriters clacking and people bothering a life out of you all the time. I wish I knew the woods like you do. Say, what's the name of that little red flower? Rubbing his back, Joe regarded the flower resentfully. Well, some folks call it one thing and some folks call another. I guess I just call it a pink flower. Babbit, blessedly ceased thinking as tramping turned into blind plotting. He was submerged in weariness, his plump legs seemed to go on by themselves without guidance, and he mechanically wiped away the sweat which stung his eyes. He was too tired to be consciously glad as after sun-scurred mile of corduroy toad rode through the swamp, where flies hovered over a hot waste of brush, they reached the cool shore of Boxcar Pond. When he lifted the pack from his back, he staggered from the change in balance, and for a moment could not stand erect. He lay beneath an ample blossom maple tree, near the guest shack, and joyously felt sleep running through his veins. He walked towards dusk to find Joe efficiently cooking bacon and eggs and flapjacks for supper, and his admiration of the wood had been returned. He sat on a stump and felt pearl. Joe, what would you do if you had a lot of money? Would you stick to guiding, or would you take a claim way back in the woods and be independent of people? For the first time Joe brightened each tutti's cut a second and bubbled. I won't thought about that if I had the money. I'd go down to Tinker's Falls and open a swell shoe store. After supper Joe proposed a game of stud poker, but Babbit refused with brevity, and Joe contentedly went to bed to date. Babbit sat on the stump, facing the dark pond, slapping mosquitoes. Saved the snoring guide, there was no other human being within ten miles. He was loner than he had ever been in his life. Then he was in Zenith. He was worrying as to whether Miss McGowan wasn't paying too much for carbon paper. He was at once resenting and missing the persistent teasing at the rough-knux table. He was wondering what Zela Reisling was doing now. He was wondering whether after the summer's maturity of being a garage man, Ted would get busy in the university he was thinking of his wife. If she would only, if she wouldn't be so darn satisfied with just settling down. No, I won't. I won't go back. I'll be fifty in three years, sixty in thirteen years. I'm going to have some fun before it's too late. I don't care. I will. He thought of Ida Putnik and Luella Swanson, of the nice widow, what was her name? Tannis Jodik, the one for whom he'd found the flat. He was, he meshed in imaginary conversations then. I can't seem to get away from thinking about folks. Less had came to him merely to run away with Folly, because he could never run away from himself. That moment he started for Zenith, and his journey there was no appearance of flight, but he was fleeing, and four days afterwards he was on the Zenith train. He knew that he was slinking back, not because it was what he longed to do, but because it was all he could do. He scanned again his discovery that he could never run away from Zenith and family in office. Because in his own brain he bore the office and the family, and every street and disquiet and allusion of Zenith. But I'm going to, oh, I'm going to start something. He vowed, and he tried to make it valiant. End of Chapter 25. Chapter 26 of Babbit. This sleeve of box recording is in the public domain, recording by Mike Vendetti, mikevendetti.com. Babbit. By Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 26. One. As he walked through the train looking for familiar faces he saw only one person whom he knew, and that was Seneca Dome, the lawyer who, after the blessings of being in Babbit's own class at college, and of becoming corporation counsel, had turned crank, had headed farmer labor tickets and fraternized with admitted socialists. Though he was in rebellion naturally, Babbit did not care to be seen talking with such a fanatic, but in all the pullmen's he could find no other acquaintance. And reluctantly hollered. Seneca Dome was a slight, thin-haired man, rather like Chum Frank except that he hadn't Frank's grin. He was reading a book called The Way of All Flesh. It looked religious to Babbit, and he wondered if Dome could possibly have been converted and turned decent and patriotic. Well, hello, Dome, he said. Dome looked up, his voice was curiously kind. Oh, how do, Babbit? Been away, eh? Yes, I have been in Washington. Washington, eh? How's the old government making out? It's... won't you sit down? Thanks. Don't care for do. Well, well, been quite a while since I had a good chance to talk to you, Dome. I was, uh, sorry you didn't turn up at the last class dinner. Oh, thanks. How's the unions coming, going to run for mayor again? Dome seemed restless. He was fingering the pages of his book, he said. I might, as though it didn't mean anything in particular, and he smiled. Babbit liked that smile and hunted for conversation. Saw a bang-up cabaret in New York, the Good Morning Cutie Bunch at Hotel Minton. Yes, they're pretty girls. I'd dance there one evening. Oh, like dancing. Naturally, I like dancing in pretty women and good food better than anything else in the world, most men do. My gosh, Dome, I thought you fellows wanted to take all the good eats and everything away from us. No, not at all. What I'd like to see is the meetings of the garment workers held at the Ritz, with the dance afterwards. Isn't that reasonable? It might be a good idea. All right, well, shame. I haven't seen more of you recent years. Oh, uh, say, I hope you haven't held it against me, my bucking you as mayor, going on the stump for Prout. You see, I'm an organization Republican, and I kind of felt. There's no reason why you shouldn't fight me. I have no doubt you're good for the organization. I remember, in college, you were an unusually liberal, sensitive chap. I can still recall you're saying to me that you were going to be a lawyer and take the cases of the poor for nothing, and fight the rich. And I remember I said I was going to be one of the rich myself, and buy paintings, and live at Newport. I'm sure you inspired us all. Well, well, I've always aimed to be liberal. Babbitt was enormously shy and proud and self-conscious. He tried to look like the boy he had been a quarter-century ago, and he shone upon his old friend Seneca Done as he rumbled. Trouble with a lot of these fellows, even the live wires and some of them that think they're forward-looking, as they aren't broad-minded and liberal. Now, I always believe in giving the other fellow a chance in listening to his ideas. That's fine. Tell you how I figure it. A little opposition is good for all of us, so a fellow, especially if he's a businessman, and engaged in doing the work of the world, ought to be liberal. Yes? I always say a fellow ought to have vision and ideals. I guess some of the fellows in my business think I'm pretty visionary, but I just let them think what they want to think, go right on, same as you do. By golly, it's nice to sit and visit and kind of... You might say, brush up on our ideals. But, of course, the visionaries do rather get beaten, doesn't it bother you? Not a bit. Nobody can dictate to me what I think. You're the man. I want you to help me. I want you to talk to some of the businessmen and try to make them a little more liberal in their attitude towards poor Beecher Ingram. Ingram? But why, he's a nut preacher that got kicked out of the congregational church, isn't he, and preaches free love and sedition. This, don't explain, was indeed the general concept of Beecher Ingram, but he himself saw Beecher Ingram as a priest of the brotherhood of man, of which Babbit was notoriously an upholder. So would Babbit keep his acquaintances from hounding Ingram and his forlorn little church? You bet. I'll call down any of the boys I hear getting funny about Ingram. Babbit said affectionately to his dear friend Don. Don warmed up and became reminiscent. He spoke of student days in Germany of lobbying for single tax in Washington of international labor conferences. He mentioned his friends, Lord Wycombe, Colonel Wedgwood, Professor Piccoli. Babbit had always supposed that Don associated only with the IWW. But now he nodded gravely, as one who knew Lord Wycombe's by the score, and he got two references to Sir Gerald Doak. He felt daring and idealistic and cosmopolitan. Suddenly, in his new spiritual grandeur, he was sorry for Zilla Reisling, and understood her as those ordinary fellows at the booster club? Never could. Two. Five hours after he had arrived in Zenith, he told his wife how hot it was in New York. He went to call on Zilla. He was buzzing with ideas and forgiveness. He'd get Paul released. He'd do things vague but highly benevolent things for Zilla. He'd be as generous as his friend Seneca Doan. He had not seen Zilla since Paul had shot her, and he still pictured her as buxom, high-colored, lively, and a little blowsy. As he drove up to her boarding-house in a depressing back street below the wholesale district, he stopped in discomfort. At an upper window, leaning on her elbows was a woman with the features of Zilla. But she was bloodless and aged like a yellow wad of old paper crumpled into wrinkles. Where Zilla had bounded and jiggled, this woman was dreadfully still. He waited half an hour before she came into the boarding-house parlor. Fifty times he opened the book of photographs of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Fifty times he looked at the picture of the Court of Honor. He was startled to find Zilla in the room. She wore a black, streaky gown, which she had tried to brighten with a girdle of crimson ribbon. The ribbon had been torn and patiently mended. He noted this carefully, because he did not wish to look at her shoulders. One shoulder was lower than the other. One arm she carried in contorted fashion as though it were paralyzed. And behind a high collar of cheap lace there was a gouge in the anemic neck which had once been shining and softly plump. Yes, she said. Well, well, old Zilla, by golly it's good to see you again. He can send his messages through a lawyer. Why, Ratsil, I didn't come here just because of him. Came as an old friend. He waited long enough. Well, you know how it is. Figured you wouldn't want to see a friend of his for quite some time. And sit down, honey. Let's be sensible. We've all of us done a bunch of things that we had not to, but maybe we can sort of start over again. Honest, Zilla, I'd like to do something to make you both happy. Know what I thought today? Mind you, Paul doesn't know a thing about this. Doesn't know I was going to come to see you. I got to thinking, Zilla's a fine, big-hearted woman, and she'll understand that Paul had his lesson now. Why wouldn't it be a fine idea if you asked the governor to pardon him? Well, if he would, if it came from you. No, wait. Just think how good you'd feel if you were generous. Yes, I wished to be generous. She was sitting primly, speaking icely. For that reason I wished to keep him in prison as an example to evil doers. I've gotten religion, George, since the terrible thing that man did to me. Sometimes I used to be unkind, and I wished for worldly pleasures, for dancing in the theatre. But when I was in the hospital, the pastor of the Pentecostal Communioning Faith used to come to see me, and he showed me, right from the prophecies written in the Word of God, that the day of judgment is coming, and all the members of the Order of Lord Churches are going straight to eternal damnation, because they only do lip service and swallow the world, the flesh and the devil. For fifteen wild minutes she talked, pouring out admonitions to flee the wrath to come, and her face flushed, her dead voice recaptured something of the shrill energy of the old zealot. She wound up with a furious, It's the blessing of God himself that Paul should be in prison now, and torn and humbled by punishment, so that he may yet save his soul, and so other wicked men, these horrible chasers of women and lust, may have an example. Babbit had itched and twisted, as in church he dared not move during the sermon, so now he felt he must seem attentive, though her screeching denunciations flew past him like carrion birds. He sought to be common brotherly. I know, Zeile, but gosh it certainly is the essence of religion to be charitable, isn't it? Let me tell you how I figured. What we need in the world is liberalism, liberally. It, we're going to get anywhere. I've always believed in being broad-minded and liberal. You liberal? It was very much the old zealot. George Babbit, you're as bad as broad-minded and liberal as a razor-blade. Oh, I am, am I? Well, just let me tell you, just let me tell you. You are, I'm as bad as by golly liberal as you are religious, anyway. You religious? I am so. Our pastor says I sustain him in the faith. I'll bet you do with Paul's money, but just to show you how liberal I am, I'm going to send a check for ten bucks to this feature ingram, because a lot of fellows are saying the poor cuss preaches sedation and free love, and they're trying to run him out of town. And they're right. They ought to run him out of town. Why he preaches? If you can call it preaching in a theater, in the house of Satan, you don't know what it is to find God, to find peace, to behold the snares that the devil spreads out at our feet. Oh, I'm so glad to see the mysterious purposes of God in having Paul harm me and stop my wickedness. And Paul's getting his. Good and plenty for the cruel things he did to me, and I hope he dies in prison. Babbit was up hat and hand-crawling. Well, that's what you call being at peace for heaven's sake. Just warn me before you go to war, will you? Three. Fast as the power of cities to reclaim the wanderer. More than mountains or the shore devouring sea, a city retains its characters, imperturbable, cynical, holding behind apparent changes and essential purpose. Though Babbit had deserted his family and dwelt with Joe Paradise in the wilderness, though he had become a liberal, though he had been quite sure, on the night before he reached Zenith that neither he nor the city would be the same again, ten days after Hebert's return, he could not believe that he had ever been away. Nor was it at all evident to his acquaintances that there was a new George F. Babbit, say that he was more irritable under the incessant shaving at the athletic club, and once when Virgil Gunch observed that Seneca don't ought to be hanged, Babbit snorted, ah, rats, you're not so bad. At home he'd run across the newspaper to his commentatory wife and was delighted by Tinka's new red Tamashanter and announced, no class to that corrugated iron garage, have to build me a nice frame one. Verona and Kenneth Escott appeared really to be engaged. In his newspaper, Escott had conducted a pure food crusade against commission houses. As a result, he had been given an excellent job in a commission house, and he was making a salary on which he could marry, and announcing irresponsible reporters who wrote stories criticizing commission houses without knowing what they were talking about. This September, Ted had entered the State University as a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. The university was at Mojales, only 15 miles from Zenith, and Ted often came down for the weekend. Babbit was worried, Ted was going in for everything but books. He had tried to make the football team as a light half-back. He was looking forward to the basketball season. He was on the committee for the freshman hop, and as a Zenithite, an enrystocrat among Yulkels, he was being riced by two fraternities. But of his studies, Babbit could learn nothing save a mumbled. Well, I think those tips of teachers just give you a lot of junk about literature and economics. One weekend, Ted proposed, say, Dad, why can't I transfer over from the College of the School of Engineers and take mechanical engineering? You always holler that I never study, but honest, I would study there. No, the engineering school again got standing as the college has, Fredit Babbit. Unlike to know how it hasn't, the engineers can play on any of the teams. There was much explanation of the dollars and cents values of being known as a college man when you go into the law, in truly oratorical account of the lawyer's life. Before he was through with it, Babbit had Ted, a United States senator. Among the great lawyers he mentioned was Seneca Doan. But gee whiz, Ted marbled. I thought you always said this Doan was a regular nut. That's no way to speak of a great man. Doan's always been a good friend of mine. In fact, I helped him in college. I started him out, and you might say inspired him. Just because he's sympathetic with the aims of labor. A lot of chumps that lack liberty and broad-mindedness, I think he's a crank. Let me tell you, there's mighty few of them that rake in the fees he does, and he's a friend of some of the strongest, most conservative men in the world like Lord Wycombe, this big English nobleman that's so well known and, you know, which would you rather be, in with a lot of greasy mechanics and laboring men, or chump up to a real fellow like Lord Wycombe, and get invited to his house for parties. Well, garsh, sighed Ted. The next weekend he came joyously with, Say Dad, why couldn't I take mining engineering instead of the academic course? You talk about standing. Maybe there isn't much in mechanical engineering, but the miners? Gee, they got seven out of eleven of the new elections in New Tau II. End of Chapter 26 Chapter 27 of Babbitt. This LibriVox recording is in the Public Domain, recording by Mike Vendetti, mikevendetti.com. Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis. Chapter 27 1 The strike which turned Zenith into two belligerent camps, white and red, began late in September with the walkout of telephone girls and linemen in protest against the reduction of wages. The newly formed union of dairy product workers went out partially in sympathy and partially in demand for a forty-four-hour week. They were followed by the truck driver's union, industry was tied up, and the whole city was nervous with the talk of a trolley strike, a printer strike, a general strike. Furious citizens trying to get telephone calls through strike-breaking girls danced helplessly. Every truck that made its way from the factories to the freight stations was guarded by a policeman trying to look at the waggle besides the scab driver. A line of fifty trucks from the Zenith Steel and Machinery Company was attacked by strikers, rushing out from the sidewalk pulling drivers from the seats, smashing carburetors and commutators, while telephone girls cheered from the walk in small boys' heave-bricks. National Guard was ordered out, Colonel Nixon, who in private life was Mr. Caleb Nixon, Secretary of the Pulmore Tractor Company, put on a long khaki coat and stalked through crowds with a forty-four automatic in his hand, even Babbit's friend Clarence Drum, the shoe merchant, a round and merry man who told stories at the athletic club and who strangely resembled a Victorian pug dog, was to be seen as a waddling but ferocious captain, with his belt tight about his comfortable little belly and his round little mouth petulant as he piped to chattering groups on corners. Move on now! I can't have any of this loitering. Every newspaper in the city save one was against the strikers. When mobs rated the newsstands at each was stationed a militiaman, a young embarrassed citizen soldier with eyeglasses, bookkeeper or grocery clerk in private life, trying to look dangerous while small boys helped. You'd ought to detain soldier, and striking truck drivers inquired tenderly. Hey, Joe, when I was fighting in France, was you in camp in the state sewer or was you doing sweet exercises in the YMCA? Be careful that bayonet now or you'll cut yourself. There was no one in Zenith who talked of anything but the strike, and no one who did not take sides. You were either a courageous friend of labor or you were a fearless supporter of the rights of property, and in either case you were belligerent and ready to disown any friend who did not hate the enemy. A condensed milk-plant was set afire, each side charged the other, and the city was hysterical. And Babbit chose this time to be publicly liberal. He belonged to the sound, sane right-thinking wing. And at first he agreed that the crooked agitators ought to be shot. He was sorry when his friend Seneca Doan defended arrested strikers and he thought of going to Doan and explaining about these agitators. But when he read a broadside alleging that even on their former wages the telephone girls had been hungry, he was troubled. All lies and fake figures, he said. But in a doubtful croak. For the Sunday after the Chatham Road Presbyterian Church announced a sermon by Dr. John Jennifer Drew on how the Saviour would end strikes. Babbit had been negligent about churchgoing lately, but he went to the service, hopeful that Dr. Drew really did have the information as to what the divine powers thought about strikes. Beside Babbit and the large curving glossy velvet upholster pew was Chum Frank. Frank whispered, Hope the doc gives the strikers hell. Ordinary I don't believe in a preacher budding into political matters. Let him stick to the straight religion and save souls, and not stir up a lot of discussion. But at a time like this, I do think he ought to stand up and ball out those pug-uglies in a fair you well. Well, said Babbit, the Reverend Dr. Drew his rustic bang flopping with the intensity of his poetic and sociologic adore trumpeted during the untoward series of industrial dislocations which have led us to be courageous and admit it boldly. Throttled the business life of our fair city these past days. There has been a great deal of loose talk about scientific prevention of scientific. Scientific. Now let me tell you that the most unscientific thing in the world is science. Take the attacks on the established fundamentals of the Tristan Creed, which were so popular with the scientists a generation ago. Oh yes, they were mighty fellows, and great pubas of criticism. They were going to destroy the Church. They were going to prove the world was created, and has been brought to its extraordinary level of morality and civilization by blind chance. Yet the Church stands just as firmly to-day as ever. And the only answer a Christian pastor needs make to the long-haired opponents of his simple faith is just a pitying smile. And now the same scientists want to replace the natural condition of free competition by crazy systems which no matter what high-sounding names they are called are nothing but a despotic paternalism. Naturally I am not criticizing labor courts, injunctions against men have proven to be striking unjustly, or those excellent unions in which the men and the boss get together. But I certainly am criticizing the system in which the free and fluid motivation of independent labor is to be replaced by crooked-up weight scales and minimum salaries, and government commissions and labor federations, and all that poppycock. What is not generally understood is that this whole industrial matter isn't a question of economics. It's essentially and only a matter of love, and of the practical application of the Christian religion. Imagine a factory instead of committees of workmen alienating the boss. The boss goes among them smiling and they smile back. The elder brother and the younger, brothers. That's what they must be loving brothers. And then strikes would be as inconceivable as hatred in the home. It was at this point that Babbit muttered, all right. Huh? Said Chelm Frank. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Just as clear as mud doesn't mean a darn thing. Maybe, but... Frank looked at him doubtfully, through all the service kept glancing at him doubtfully, till Babbit was nervous. Two. The strikers had announced a parade for Tuesday morning, but Colonel Nixon had forbidden it to newspaper, said. When Babbit drove west from his office at ten that morning, he saw a drove of shabby men heading towards the tangled, dirty district beyond Courthouse Square. He hated them, because they were poor, because they made him feel insecure. Damn loafers! Wouldn't be common workmen if they had any pep, he complained. He wondered if there was going to be a riot. He drove toward the starting point of the parade, a tangle of limp and faded grass known as Moor Street Park, and halted his car. The park and streets were buzzing with strikers, young men and blue damn shirts, old men with caps, through them, keeping them stirred like a boiling pot moved the militia men. Babbit could hear the soldiers' monotonous orders. Keep moving. Move on. Bow. Keep your feet warm. Babbit admired their stolled good temper. The crowd shouted, Ten soldiers and dirty dog servants of the capitalist. But the militia men grinned and answered only, Er, that's right. Keep moving, Billy. Babbit thrilled over the citizen soldiers, hated the scoundrels who were obstructing the pleasant ways of prosperity. Admired Colonel Nixon's striding contempt for the crowd, and as Captain Clarence Drum, the rather puffing shoe dealer, came raging by. Babbit, respectively, had clamored, Great work, Captain. Don't let him march. He watched the strikers failing from the park. Many of them bore posters with, They can't stop our peacefully walking. The militia men tore away the posters, but the strikers fell in behind their leaders and straggled off a thin, unimpressive trickle between steel glinting lines of soldiers. Babbit saw with disappointment that there wasn't going to be any violence. Nothing interesting at all. Then he gasped. Among the marchers beside the bulk of young workmen was Seneca Donne, smiling content. In front of him was Professor Brock Bank, head of the history department in the State University, an old man and white bearded known to come from a distinguished Massachusetts family. My gosh, Babbit marbled, as well like him and with the strikers, and good ol' Seneca Donne. They're fools to get mixed up with this bunch. They're parlor socialists, but they have got nerve, and nothing in it for them, not a cent, and I don't know, it's all the strikers look as such tough nuts. Look just about like anybody else to me. The militia men were turning the parade to on a side street. They got just as much right to march as anybody else. They own the street as much as Clarence Drumwuther or the American Legion does. Babbit grumbled, because they're a bad element, but not rats. At the athletic club, Babbit was silent during lunch, while the others fretted. I don't know what the world's coming to, or solace their spirits with kidding. Captain Clarence Drum came swinging by, splendid and khaki. Out of the going, Captain, inquired Virgil Gunch. Oh, we got him stopped. We worked him off on side streets and separated him, and they got discouraged and went home. Fine work, no violence. Fine work, nothing, groaned Mr. Drumwuther. If I had my way there'd be a whole lot of violence, and I'd start it, and then the whole thing would be over. I don't believe in standing back and wet-nursing these fellows and letting their disturbance drag on. I'd tell you these strikers are nothing in God's world but a lot of bomb-throwing socialists and thugs. And the only way to handle them is with a club. That's what I'd do. Beat up the whole lot of them. Babbit heard himself saying, Oh, rats! Clarence, they look just about like you and me, and I certainly didn't notice any bombs. Drum complained. Oh, you didn't, eh? Well, maybe you'd like to take charge of the strike. Just tell Colonel Nixon what innocents the strikers are. He'd be glad to hear about it. Drum strode on, while all the tables stared at Babbit. What's the idea? Do you want us to give those hellhounds love and kisses or what? Said Orville Jones. Do you defend a lot of hoodlums that are trying to take the bread and butter away from our families? Raged Professor Pumpery? Virgil Gunch intimidatingly said nothing. He put on sternness like a mask. His jaw was hard. His bristly short hair seemed cruel, and his silence was a ferocious thunder. While the others assured Babbit that they must have misunderstood him, Gunch looked as though he had understood only too well. Like a robe judge, he listened to Babbit's stammering. No, sure, of course they're a bunch of tough. But I just mean strikes me as a bad policy to talk about clubbing them. Cabe Nixon doesn't. He'd got to find Italian hand. And that's why he's Colonel. Clarence Drone is jealous of him. Well, said Professor Pumpery, you hurt Clarence's feelings, George. He's been out there all morning getting hot and dusty, and no wonder he wants to beat the tar out of those sons of guns. Gunch said nothing and watched. And Babbit knew that he was being watched. Three. As he was leaving the club, Babbit heard Chum Frank protesting to Gunch. Don't know what's got into him. Last Sunday Doc Drew preached a quirking sermon about decency in business, and Babbit kicked about that, too. Here's I can figure out. Babbit was vaguely frightened. Four. He saw a crowd listening to a man who was talking from the rostrum of a kitchen chair. Stopped his car. From newspaper pictures he knew that the speaker must be the notorious freelance preacher, Beecher Ingram, of whom Seneca Don has spoken. Ingram was a gaunt man with flamboyant hair, weather-beaten cheeks, and worried eyes. He was pleading, If those telephone girls can hold out, living on one meal a day, doing their own washing, starving and smiling, you big, honking men ought to be able. Babbit saw that from the sidewalk Virgil Gunch was watching him. In vague disquiet he started the car and mechanically drove on, while Gunch's hostile eyes seemed to follow him all the way. Five. Her lot of these fellows, Babbit was complaining to his wife, the thank-you-forkmen go on strike their regular bunch of fiends. Now, of course, it's a fight between sound business and a destructive element, and we got to lick the rustuffins out of them when they challenged us, but dog gone, if I see why we can't fight like gentlemen and not go calling them dirty dogs and saying they ought to be shot down. Right, George? She said placidly. I thought you always insisted they're all strikers ought to be put in jail. Never did. Well, I mean, some of them, of course, are responsible leaders, but I mean a fellow ought to be broad-minded and liberal about things like... But, dearie, I thought you always said the so-called liberal people were the worst of... Rats! Women never can understand the different definitions of a word. Depends on how you mean it, and it don't pay to be too cocksure about anything. Now, these strikers, honest, they're not such bad people just foolish. They don't understand the complications of merchandising and profit the way we businessmen do, but sometimes I think they're about like the rest of us, and no more hogs for wages than we are for profits. George, if people were to hear you talk like that, of course, I know you. I remember what a wild, crazy boy you were. I know you don't mean a word you say, but if people that don't understand you were to hear you talking like that, they'd think you were a regular socialist. What I care what anybody thinks. And let me tell you right now, I want you to distinctly understand. I never was a wild, crazy kid. And when I say a thing, I mean it. I stand by it and honest. Do you think people would think I was too liberal if I said the strikers were decent? Of course they would. But don't worry, dear. I know you don't mean a word of it. Time to trot up to bed now. Have you enough covers for tonight? On the sleeping porch he puzzled. She'd understand me. Hardly understands myself. Why can't I take things easy the way I used to? Wish I could go out to Sandy Dunn's house and talk things over with him. No, suppose Verge Gunch saw me going in there. Wish I knew some really smart woman and nice that would be see what I'm trying to get at. Let me talk to her and wonder if Myra's right. Could the fellows think I've gone nutty just because I'm broad-minded and liberal? Boy, Verge looked at me. End of Chapter 27 1 Miss McGunn came into his private office at three in the afternoon with... Listen, Miss Babbitt, there's a Mrs. Dudek on the phone, wants to see about some repairs and the salesmen are all out. Want to talk to her? All right. The voice of Tannis Dudek was clear and pleasant. The black cylinder of the telephone receiver seemed to hold a tiny animated image of her, lustrous eyes, delicate nose, gentle chin. This is Mrs. Dudek. Do you remember me? You drove me up here to the Cavendish Apartments and helped me find such a nice flat? Sure, I better remember. What can I do for you? Why, it's just a little... I don't know that I ought to bother you, but the janitor doesn't seem to be able to fix it. You know my flat is on the top floor with these autumn rains, the roof is beginning to leak, and I'd be awfully glad if... Sure, I'll come up and take a look at it, nervously. When do you expect to be in? Why, I'm in every morning. Being this afternoon in an hour or so? Yes. Perhaps I could give you a cup of tea. I think I ought to, after all your trouble. Fine. I'll run up there as soon as I can get away. He meditated. Now there's a woman who's got refinement, savvy, class. After all your trouble, give you a cup of tea. She'd appreciate a fellow. I'm a fool, but I'm not such a bad cuss. Get to know me. And not so much a fool as they think. The great strike was over. The strikers beaten, accepted. Virgil Gunch seemed less cordial. There were no visible effects of Babus' treachery to the clan. The oppressive fear of criticism was gone, but... A different loneliness remained. Now he was so accelerated that to prove he wasn't. He droned about the office for fifteen minutes, looking at blueprints, explaining to Ms. McGoon that this Mr. Scott wanted more money for her house, had raised the asking price, raised it from $7,000 to $8,500, would Ms. McGoon be sure to put it down on the card? Mrs. Scott's house? Raise. When he had thus established himself as a person unemotional and interested only in business, he sauntered out. He took a particularly long time to start his car. He kicked the tires, dusted the glass of the speedometer, and tightened the screws holding the windshield spotlight. He drove happily off towards the Bellevue district, conscious of the presence of Mrs. Judiq, as a brilliant light on the horizon. The maple leaves had fallen and they lined the gutters of the asphalted streets. It was a day of pale gold and faded green, tranquil and lingering. Babut was aware of the meditative day and of the barrenness of Bellevue. Blocks of wooden houses, garages, little shops, weedy lots, nage-pepping up needs the touch that people like Mrs. Judiq could give a place. He ruminated as he rattled through the long, crude, airy streets. The wind rose in livening keen, and in a blaze of well-being he came to the flat of Tannis Judiq. She was wearing when she, flatteringly admitting him, a frock of black chiffon cut modestly round at the base of her pretty throat. She seemed to him very sophisticated. He glanced at the crittons and colored prints in her living room, and gurgled, You've fixed the place up nice. Takes a clever woman to know how to make a home all right. You really like it, I'm so glad. But you've neglected me scandalsily. You promised to come up some time and learn to dance. Rather unsteadily, oh, but you didn't mean it seriously. Perhaps not, but you might have tried. Well, here I've come for my lesson, and you might just as well prepare to have me stay for supper. They both laughed in a manner which indicated that, of course, he didn't mean it. But first, I guess, a better look at the leak. She climbed with him to the flat roof of the apartment house, a detached world of slatted wooden walks, clothesline water tank in a penthouse. He poked at things with his toe and sought to impress her by being learned about copper gutters, the desirability of passing plumbing pipes through a lead collar and sleeve, and flashing them with copper, and the advantages of cedar over boiler iron for roof tanks. You have to know so much in real estate, she admired. He promised that the roof should be repaired within two days. Uh, do you mind my phoning from your apartment, you ask? Heavens, no. He stood for a moment at the coping, looking over land of hard little bungalows with abnormally large porches in no apartment houses, small but brave with variegated brick walls and terracotta trimmings. Beyond them was a hill with a gouge of yellow clay like a vast wound. Behind every apartment house, beside each dwelling, were small garages. It was a world of good little people, comfortable, industrious, credulous. In the autumn light the flat newness was mellowed, and the air was a sun-tinted pool. Gully, it's one fine afternoon. You get a great view here, right up Tanner's Hill, said Babbit. Yes, it's nice and open. So darn few people appreciate a view. Don't you go raising my rent on that account? Oh, that was naughty of me. I was just teasing. Seriously though, there are so few people who respond, who react to views, I mean. They haven't any feeling of poetry and beauty. That's a fact. They haven't, he breathed. Admiring her slenderness and he they absorbed airy way in which she looked toward the hill. Chin lifted, lips smiling. Well, guess I better telephone the plumbers, so they'll get on the job first thing in the morning. When he had telephoned, making it conspicuously authoritative and gruff and masculine, he looked doubtful and signed. I suppose I better be... Oh, you must have a cup of tea first. Well, it would go pretty good at that. It was luxurious to lull in a deep green rep chair. His legs thrust out before him to glance at the black Chinese telephone stand in the colored photograph of Mount Vernon, which he had always liked so much, while in the tiny kitchen so near, Mrs. Udeek sang, My Creole Queen. In an intolerable sweetness, a contentment so deep that he was wistfully discontented. He saw magnolias by moonlight and heard plantation darkies crooning to the banjo. He wanted to be near her on pretense of helping her. Yet he wanted to remain in his still ecstasy, languidly he remained. When she bustled in with tea, he smiled up at her. But this is awfully nice. For the first time he was not fencing. He was quietly and securely friendly, and friendly and quiet was her answer. It's nice to have you here. You were so kind helping me to find this little home. They agreed that the weather would soon turn cold. They agreed that prohibition was prohibitive. They agreed that art in the home was cultural. They agreed about everything. They even became bold. They hinted that these modern young girls, well honestly their short skirts, were short. They were proud to find that they were not shocked by such frank speaking. Tannis ventured, I know you'll understand. I mean, I don't quite know how to say it, but I do think that girls who pretend they're bad by the way they dress really never go any further. They give away the fact that they have at the instincts of a womanly woman. Remembering Ida Putank, the manicure girl, and how ill she had used him, Babot agreed with enthusiasm. Remembering how ill all the world had used him, he told of Paul Reisling of Sylla of Seneca Done of the Strike. Yeah, I was. Of course I was as anxious to have these beggars licked to a stand still as anybody else but Garsh. No reason for not seeing their side for a fellow of his own sake. He's got to be broad-minded and liberal. Don't you think so? Oh, I do. Sitting on the hard little couch, she clasped her hands beside her. Leaned toward him, absorbed him, and in a glorious state of being appreciated. He proclaimed, Well, I'm up and said to the fellows at the club. Look, here I— Do you belong to the union club? I think it's— No, they have to let me tell you. Of course they're always asking me to join the union, but I always say no. No, sir. Nothing doing. I don't mind the expense, but I can't stand all the old fogies. Oh, yes, that does well. But tell me, what did you say to them? Oh, you don't want to hear it. I'm probably boring you to death with my troubles. You wouldn't hardly think I was an old duffer. I sound like a kid. Oh, you're a boy yet, I mean. You can't be a day over forty-five. Well, I'm not much, but by golly I begin to feel middle-aged sometimes. All these responsibilities and all? Oh, I know. Her voice caressed him, it cloaked him like warm silk. And I feel lonely, so lonely some days, Mr. Babbitt. We're a sad pair of birds, but I think we're pretty darn nice. Yes, I think we're a lot nicer than most people I know. They smiled. But please, tell me what you said at the club. Well, it was like this. Corsenica don't is a friend of mine. They can say what they want to. They can call him anything they please. But what most folks here don't know is that Sene is the bosom pal of some of the biggest statesmen in the world. Lord Wycombe, for instance. You know, this big British nobleman? My friend, Sir Gerald Doak, told me that Lord Wycombe is one of the biggest guns in England. Well, Doaker, somebody told me. Oh, do you know Sir Gerald? The one that was here at the McKevlies? Know him? Well, say, I know him just well enough so we call each other George and Jerry, and we got so pickled in Chicago. That must have been fun, but she shook her finger at him. I can't have you getting pickled. I'll have to take you in hand. Wish you would. Well, as I was saying, you see, I happen to know what a big noise Sonny Doane is outside of Zenith. But of course, the Prophet hasn't got any honour in his own country in Sene. Darn his old hide. He's so blame-modest that he never lets folks know the kind of an outfit he travels with when he goes abroad. Well, during the strike, Clarence Drum comes pirating up to our table, all dolled up, fit to kill in his nice little cap and uniform, and somebody says to him, busting the strike, Clarence? Well, he swells up like a powder pigeon, and he hollers, so you could hear him way up in the reading room. Yeah, sure, I told the strike leaders where they got off, and so they went home. Well, I says to him, glad there wasn't any violence. Yes, he says, but if I hadn't had kept my eye skin, there would have been. All those fellows had bombs in their pockets. They're a regular anarchist. Oh, rats, Clarence, I says. I looked them all over carefully, and they didn't have any more bombs than a rabbit, I says. Of course, I says, they're foolish, but they're a good deal like you and me after all. And then Virgil Gunch or somebody, you know, I was chump-freak. You know, the famous poet? Great pal of mine. He says to me, look here, he says, do you mean to say you advocate these strikes? Well, I was so disgusted with a fellow whose mind worked that way that I swear. I had a good mind to not explain it all, just ignore him. Oh, that's so wise, said Mrs. Judique. But finally I explains to him, if you'd done as much as I have on Chamber Commerce Committees and all, says, then you'd have the right to talk. But at the same time, I says, I believe in treating your opponent like a gentleman. Well, sir, that held him frank, chum, I always call him. He didn't have another word to say, but at that, I guess some of them kind of thought I was too liberal. What do you think? Oh, you were so wise and courageous. I love a man to have the courage of his convictions. But do you think it was a good stunt? After all, some of these fellows are so darn cautious and narrow-minded that they're prejudiced against the fellow that talks right out of my meaning. What do you care? In the long run, they're bound to respect a man who makes them think. And with your reputation for oratory you? What do you know about my reputation for oratory? Oh, I'm not going to tell you everything I know, but seriously. You don't realize what a famous man you are. Well, though I haven't done much orating this fall, too kind of bothered by this Paul Reisling business, I guess, but do you know you're the first person that's really understood what I was getting at? Tannis, listen to me, will you? Fat nerve I've got calling you Tannis. Oh, do and shall I call you George? Don't you think it's awfully nice when two people have so much, much shall I call it, so much analysis that they can discard all the stupid conventions and understand each other and become acquainted right away, like ships that pass in the night? I certainly do. I certainly do. He was no longer quiescent in his chair. He wandered about the room. He dropped on the couch beside her. But as he awkwardly stretched his hands toward her fragile immaculate fingers, she said brightly, Do you give me a cigarette? Would you think poor Tannis was dreadfully naughty if she smoked? Lord, no, I like it. He had often, and, waitily, pondered flappers smoking in zenith restaurants. But he knew only one woman who smoked Mrs. Sam Doppelieu, this flighty neighbor. He ceremoniously lighted Tannis's cigarette, like for a place to deposit the burnt match and dropped it into his pocket. I'm sure you want a cigar, poor man, she crooned. Do you mind one? Oh, no, I love the smell of a good cigar, so nice and, so nice and like a man. You'll find an ashtray in my bedroom, on the table beside the bed. If you don't mind getting it. He was embarrassed by her bedroom, the broad couch with a cover of violet silk, mauve curtains striped with gold Chinese Chippendale Bureau, and an amazing row of slippers with ribbon-wound shoe trees, and primrose stockings lying across them. His manner of bringing the ashtray had just the right note of easy friendliness, he felt. A boob-like, Virgil Gunch would try to get funny about seeing her bedroom, but I take it casually. He was not casual afterward. The contentment of companionship was gone, and he was restless with desire to touch her hand. But whenever he turned toward her the cigarette was in his way. It was a shield between them. He waited till she would have finished, but as he rejoiced at the quick crushing of its light on the ashtray, she said, Don't you want to give me another cigarette? And, hopelessly, he saw the screen of pale smoke in her graceful, tilted hand, again between them. He was not merely curious now to find out whether she would let him hold her hand, all in a purest friendship naturally, but agonized with need of it. On the surface appeared none of all this frettful drama. They were talking cheerfully of motors of trips to California of Chum Frink once he said delicately, I do hate these guys. I hate these people that invite themselves to meals. But I seem to have a feeling I'm going to have supper with the lovely Mrs. Tannis Judique tonight. But I suppose you probably already have seven dates already. Well, I was thinking of some going to the movies. Yes, I really think I ought to get out and get some fresh air. She did not encourage him to stay, but never did she discourage him. He considered, I better take a sneak. She will let me stay. There is something doing. And I mustn't get mixed up with, I mustn't. I've got to beat it then. No, it's too late now. Suddenly at seven, brushing her cigarette away, briskly taking her hand. Tannis, stop teasing me, you noy. Here we are a couple of lonely birds and we're awfully happy together. Any way I am. Never been so happy. Do let me stay. I'll gallop down to the delicatessen and buy some stuff. Cold chicken, maybe? Or cold turkey? We can have a nice little supper and afterwards, if you want to chase me out. I'll be good and go like a lamb. Well, yes, it would be nice, she said. Nor did she withdraw her hand. He squeezed it trembling and blundered toward his coat. At the delicatessen he bought preposterous stores of food, chosen on the principle of his expansiveness, from the drugstore across the street he telephoned to his wife. Uh, got to get a fellow to sign a lease before he leaves town on the midnight. Won't be home till late. Don't wait up for me, kiss, take a good night. He expectantly lumbered back to the flat. Oh, you bad thing, you buy so much food. Was a greeting and her voice was gay, her smile acceptant. He helped her in the tiny white kitchen. He washed the lettuce, he opened the olive bottle. She ordered him to set the table and as he trotted into the living room as he hunted through the buffet for knives and forks, he felt utterly at home. Now, the only other thing he announced is what you're going to wear. I can't decide, brother, you're to put on your swellest evening gown? Or let your hair down and put on short skirts and make believe you're a little girl. I'm going to die in just as I am in this old chiffon rag, and if you can't stand poor Tannis that way, you can go to the club for dinner. Stand you, he patted her shoulder. Child, you're the brainiest and the loveliest and finest woman I've ever met. Come now, Lady Wycombe. If you'll take the duke of Zena's arm, we will prambrelate to the magnolias feed. Oh, you do say the funniest and nicest things. When they had finished the picnic supper, he thrust his head out of the window and reported, It's turned awful chilly and I think it's going to rain. You don't want to go to the movies. Well, I wish we had a fireplace and I wish it was raining like all get out tonight. And I wish we were in a funny little old fashioned cottage and the trees thrashing like everything outside and a great big log fire. And I'll tell you, let's draw this couch up to the radiator and stretch our feet out and pretend it's a wood fire. Oh, I think that's pathetic, you big child. But they did drop to the radiator and prop their feet against it. His clumsy black shoes, her patent leather slippers. In the dimness they talked of themselves of how lonely she was, how bewildered he, and how wonderful that they had found each other, as they fell silent in the room was stiller than a country lane. There was no sound when the streets saved the work of motor-tires, the rumble of a distant freight train. Self contained was the room, warm, secure, insulated from the harassing world. He was absorbed by a rapture in which all fear and doubting were smothered away. And when he reached home at dawn the rapture had mellowed to contentment. Serene and full of memories.