Babbitt
fools--at least when they come to forty or forty-five they’re bored--and
they hate business, and they’d go-- Why do you suppose there’s so many
‘mysterious’ suicides? Why do you suppose so many Substantial Citizens
jumped right into the war? Think it was all patriotism?”
Babbitt snorted, “What do you expect? Think we were sent into the world
to have a soft time and--what is it?--‘float on flowery beds of ease’?
Think Man was just made to be happy?”
“Why not? Though I’ve never discovered anybody that knew what the deuce
Man really was made for!”
“Well we know--not just in the Bible alone, but it stands to reason--a
man who doesn’t buckle down and do his duty, even if it does bore him
sometimes, is nothing but a--well, he’s simply a weakling. Mollycoddle,
in fact! And what do you advocate? Come down to cases! If a man is bored
by his wife, do you seriously mean he has a right to chuck her and take
a sneak, or even kill himself?”
“Good Lord, I don’t know what ‘rights’ a man has! And I don’t know the
solution of boredom. If I did, I’d be the one philosopher that had the
cure for living. But I do know that about ten times as many people find
their lives dull, and unnecessarily dull, as ever admit it; and I do
believe that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead of
being nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice and
patient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we
might make life more fun.”
They drifted into a maze of speculation. Babbitt was elephantishly
uneasy. Paul was bold, but not quite sure about what he was being bold.
Now and then Babbitt suddenly agreed with Paul in an admission which
contradicted all his defense of duty and Christian patience, and at
each admission he had a curious reckless joy. He said at last:
“Look here, old Paul, you do a lot of talking about kicking things in
the face, but you never kick. Why don’t you?”
“Nobody does. Habit too strong. But-- Georgie, I’ve been thinking of one
mild bat--oh, don’t worry, old pillar of monogamy; it’s highly proper.
It seems to be settled now, isn’t it--though of course Zilla keeps
rooting for a nice expensive vacation in New York and Atlantic City,
with the bright lights and the bootlegged cocktails and a bunch of
lounge-lizards to dance with--but the Babbitts and the Rieslings are
sure-enough going to Lake Sunasquam, aren’t we? Why couldn’t you and I
make some excuse--say business in New York--and get up to Maine four or
five days before they do, and just loaf by ourselves and smoke and cuss
and be natural?”
“Great! Great idea!” Babbitt admired.
Not for fourteen years had he taken a holiday without his wife, and
neither of them quite believed they could commit this audacity. Many
members of the Athletic Club did go camping without their wives, but
they were officially dedicated to fishing and hunting, whereas the
sacred and unchangeable sports of Babbitt and Paul Riesling were
golfing, motoring, and bridge. For either the fishermen or the golfers
to have changed their habits would have been an infraction of their
self-imposed discipline which would have shocked all right-thinking and
regularized citizens.
Babbitt blustered, “Why don’t we just put our foot down and say, ‘We’re
going on ahead of you, and that’s all there is to it!’ Nothing criminal
in it. Simply say to Zilla--”
“You don’t say anything to Zilla simply. Why, Georgie, she’s almost as
much of a moralist as you are, and if I told her the truth she’d believe
we were going to meet some dames in New York. And even Myra--she never
nags you, the way Zilla does, but she’d worry. She’d say, ‘Don’t you
_want_ me to go to Maine with you? I shouldn’t dream of going unless
you wanted me;’ and you’d give in to save her feelings. Oh, the devil!
Let’s have a shot at duck-pins.”
During the game of duck-pins, a juvenile form of bowling, Paul was
silent. As they came down the steps of the club, not more than half an
hour after the time at which Babbitt had sternly told Miss McGoun he
would be back, Paul sighed, “Look here, old man, oughtn’t to talked
about Zilla way I did.”
“Rats, old man, it lets off steam.”
“Oh, I know! After spending all noon sneering at the conventional stuff,
I’m conventional enough to be ashamed of saving my life by busting out
with my fool troubles!”
“Old Paul, your nerves are kind of on the bum. I’m going to take you
away. I’m going to rig this thing. I’m going to have an important deal
in New York and--and sure, of course!-- I’ll need you to advise me on the
roof of the building! And the ole deal will fall through, and there’ll
be nothing for us but to go on ahead to Maine. I-- Paul, when it comes
right down to it, I don’t care whether you bust loose or not. I do like
having a rep for being one of the Bunch, but if you ever needed me I’d
chuck it and come out for you every time! Not of course but what
you’re--course I don’t mean you’d ever do anything that would put--that
would put a decent position on the fritz but-- See how I mean? I’m kind
of a clumsy old codger, and I need your fine Eyetalian hand. We-- Oh,
hell, I can’t stand here gassing all day! On the job! S’ long! Don’t
take any wooden money, Paulibus! See you soon! S’ long!”
CHAPTER VI
I
He forgot Paul Riesling in an afternoon of not unagreeable details.
After a return to his office, which seemed to have staggered on without
him, he drove a “prospect” out to view a four-flat tenement in the
Linton district. He was inspired by the customer’s admiration of the new
cigar-lighter. Thrice its novelty made him use it, and thrice he hurled
half-smoked cigarettes from the car, protesting, “I _got_ to quit
smoking so blame much!”
Their ample discussion of every detail of the cigar-lighter led them to
speak of electric flat-irons and bed-warmers. Babbitt apologized for
being so shabbily old-fashioned as still to use a hot-water bottle, and
he announced that he would have the sleeping-porch wired at once. He had
enormous and poetic admiration, though very little understanding, of all
mechanical devices. They were his symbols of truth and beauty. Regarding
each new intricate mechanism--metal lathe, two-jet carburetor, machine
gun, oxyacetylene welder--he learned one good realistic-sounding phrase,
and used it over and over, with a delightful feeling of being technical
and initiated.
The customer joined him in the worship of machinery, and they came
buoyantly up to the tenement and began that examination of plastic slate
roof, kalamein doors, and seven-eighths-inch blind-nailed flooring,
began those diplomacies of hurt surprise and readiness to be persuaded
to do something they had already decided to do, which would some day
result in a sale.
On the way back Babbitt picked up his partner and father-in-law, Henry
T. Thompson, at his kitchen-cabinet works, and they drove through South
Zenith, a high-colored, banging, exciting region: new factories of
hollow tile with gigantic wire-glass windows, surly old red-brick
factories stained with tar, high-perched water-tanks, big red trucks
like locomotives, and, on a score of hectic side-tracks, far-wandering
freight-cars from the New York Central and apple orchards, the Great
Northern and wheat-plateaus, the Southern Pacific and orange groves.
They talked to the secretary of the Zenith Foundry Company about an
interesting artistic project--a cast-iron fence for Linden Lane
Cemetery. They drove on to the Zeeco Motor Company and interviewed the
sales-manager, Noël Ryland, about a discount on a Zeeco car for
Thompson. Babbitt and Ryland were fellow-members of the Boosters’ Club,
and no Booster felt right if he bought anything from another Booster
without receiving a discount. But Henry Thompson growled, “Oh, t’ hell
with ’em! I’m not going to crawl around mooching discounts, not from
nobody.” It was one of the differences between Thompson, the
old-fashioned, lean Yankee, rugged, traditional, stage type of American
business man, and Babbitt, the plump, smooth, efficient,
up-to-the-minute and otherwise perfected modern. Whenever Thompson
twanged, “Put your John Hancock on that line,” Babbitt was as much
amused by the antiquated provincialism as any proper Englishman by any
American. He knew himself to be of a breeding altogether more esthetic
and sensitive than Thompson’s. He was a college graduate, he played
golf, he often smoked cigarettes instead of cigars, and when he went to
Chicago he took a room with a private bath. “The whole thing is,” he
explained to Paul Riesling, “these old codgers lack the subtlety that
you got to have to-day.”
This advance in civilization could be carried too far, Babbitt
perceived. Noël Ryland, sales-manager of the Zeeco, was a frivolous
graduate of Princeton, while Babbitt was a sound and standard ware from
that great department-store, the State University. Ryland wore spats, he
wrote long letters about City Planning and Community Singing, and,
though he was a Booster, he was known to carry in his pocket small
volumes of poetry in a foreign language. All this was going too far.
Henry Thompson was the extreme of insularity, and Noël Ryland the
extreme of frothiness, while between them, supporting the state,
defending the evangelical churches and domestic brightness and sound
business, were Babbitt and his friends.
With this just estimate of himself--and with the promise of a discount
on Thompson’s car--he returned to his office in triumph.
But as he went through the corridor of the Reeves Building he sighed,
“Poor old Paul! I got to-- Oh, damn Noël Ryland! Damn Charley McKelvey!
Just because they make more money than I do, they think they’re so
superior. I wouldn’t be found dead in their stuffy old Union Club!
I-- Somehow, to-day, I don’t feel like going back to work. Oh well--”
II
He answered telephone calls, he read the four o’clock mail, he signed
his morning’s letters, he talked to a tenant about repairs, he fought
with Stanley Graff.
Young Graff, the outside salesman, was always hinting that he deserved
an increase of commission, and to-day he complained, “I think I ought to
get a bonus if I put through the Heiler sale. I’m chasing around and
working on it every single evening, almost.”
Babbitt frequently remarked to his wife that it was better to “con your
office-help along and keep ’em happy ’stead of jumping on ’em and poking
’em up--get more work out of ’em that way,” but this unexampled lack of
appreciation hurt him, and he turned on Graff:
“Look here, Stan; let’s get this clear. You’ve got an idea somehow that
it’s you that do all the selling. Where d’ you get that stuff? Where d’
you think you’d be if it wasn’t for our capital behind you, and our
lists of properties, and all the prospects we find for you? All you got
to do is follow up our tips and close the deal. The hall-porter could
sell Babbitt-Thompson listings! You say you’re engaged to a girl, but
have to put in your evenings chasing after buyers. Well, why the devil
shouldn’t you? What do you want to do? Sit around holding her hand? Let
me tell you, Stan, if your girl is worth her salt, she’ll be glad to
know you’re out hustling, making some money to furnish the home-nest,
instead of doing the lovey-dovey. The kind of fellow that kicks about
working overtime, that wants to spend his evenings reading trashy novels
or spooning and exchanging a lot of nonsense and foolishness with some
girl, he ain’t the kind of upstanding, energetic young man, with a
future--and with Vision!--that we want here. How about it? What’s your
Ideal, anyway? Do you want to make money and be a responsible member of
the community, or do you want to be a loafer, with no Inspiration or
Pep?”
Graff was not so amenable to Vision and Ideals as usual. “You bet I want