Babbitt
diplomacy, and cheating at poker) had only ten per cent., which Babbitt
and the Traction officials had given to him for “fixing” health
inspectors and fire inspectors and a member of the State Transportation
Commission.
But Babbitt was virtuous. He advocated, though he did not practise, the
prohibition of alcohol; he praised, though he did not obey, the laws
against motor-speeding; he paid his debts; he contributed to the church,
the Red Cross, and the Y. M. C. A.; he followed the custom of his clan
and cheated only as it was sanctified by precedent; and he never
descended to trickery--though, as he explained to Paul Riesling:
“Course I don’t mean to say that every ad I write is literally true or
that I always believe everything I say when I give some buyer a good
strong selling-spiel. You see--you see it’s like this: In the first
place, maybe the owner of the property exaggerated when he put it into
my hands, and it certainly isn’t my place to go proving my principal a
liar! And then most folks are so darn crooked themselves that they
expect a fellow to do a little lying, so if I was fool enough to never
whoop the ante I’d get the credit for lying anyway! In self-defense I
got to toot my own horn, like a lawyer defending a client--his bounden
duty, ain’t it, to bring out the poor dub’s good points? Why, the Judge
himself would bawl out a lawyer that didn’t, even if they both knew the
guy was guilty! But even so, I don’t pad out the truth like Cecil
Rountree or Thayer or the rest of these realtors. Fact, I think a fellow
that’s willing to deliberately up and profit by lying ought to be shot!”
Babbitt’s value to his clients was rarely better shown than this
morning, in the conference at eleven-thirty between himself, Conrad
Lyte, and Archibald Purdy.
V
Conrad Lyte was a real-estate speculator. He was a nervous speculator.
Before he gambled he consulted bankers, lawyers, architects, contracting
builders, and all of their clerks and stenographers who were willing to
be cornered and give him advice. He was a bold entrepreneur, and he
desired nothing more than complete safety in his investments, freedom
from attention to details, and the thirty or forty per cent. profit
which, according to all authorities, a pioneer deserves for his risks
and foresight. He was a stubby man with a cap-like mass of short gray
curls and clothes which, no matter how well cut, seemed shaggy. Below
his eyes were semicircular hollows, as though silver dollars had been
pressed against them and had left an imprint.
Particularly and always Lyte consulted Babbitt, and trusted in his slow
cautiousness.
Six months ago Babbitt had learned that one Archibald Purdy, a grocer in
the indecisive residential district known as Linton, was talking of
opening a butcher shop beside his grocery. Looking up the ownership of
adjoining parcels of land, Babbitt found that Purdy owned his present
shop but did not own the one available lot adjoining. He advised Conrad
Lyte to purchase this lot, for eleven thousand dollars, though an
appraisal on a basis of rents did not indicate its value as above nine
thousand. The rents, declared Babbitt, were too low; and by waiting they
could make Purdy come to their price. (This was Vision.) He had to bully
Lyte into buying. His first act as agent for Lyte was to increase the
rent of the battered store-building on the lot. The tenant said a number
of rude things, but he paid.
Now, Purdy seemed ready to buy, and his delay was going to cost him ten
thousand extra dollars--the reward paid by the community to Mr. Conrad
Lyte for the virtue of employing a broker who had Vision and who
understood Talking Points, Strategic Values, Key Situations,
Underappraisals, and the Psychology of Salesmanship.
Lyte came to the conference exultantly. He was fond of Babbitt, this
morning, and called him “old hoss.” Purdy, the grocer, a long-nosed man
and solemn, seemed to care less for Babbitt and for Vision, but Babbitt
met him at the street door of the office and guided him toward the
private room with affectionate little cries of “This way, Brother
Purdy!” He took from the correspondence-file the entire box of cigars
and forced them on his guests. He pushed their chairs two inches forward
and three inches back, which gave an hospitable note, then leaned back
in his desk-chair and looked plump and jolly. But he spoke to the
weakling grocer with firmness.
“Well, Brother Purdy, we been having some pretty tempting offers from
butchers and a slew of other folks for that lot next to your store, but
I persuaded Brother Lyte that we ought to give you a shot at the
property first. I said to Lyte, ‘It’d be a rotten shame,’ I said, ‘if
somebody went and opened a combination grocery and meat market right
next door and ruined Purdy’s nice little business.’ Especially--”
Babbitt leaned forward, and his voice was harsh, “--it would be hard
luck if one of these cash-and-carry chain-stores got in there and
started cutting prices below cost till they got rid of competition and
forced you to the wall!”
Purdy snatched his thin hands from his pockets, pulled up his trousers,
thrust his hands back into his pockets, tilted in the heavy oak chair,
and tried to look amused, as he struggled:
“Yes, they’re bad competition. But I guess you don’t realize the Pulling
Power that Personality has in a neighborhood business.”
The great Babbitt smiled. “That’s so. Just as you feel, old man. We
thought we’d give you first chance. All right then--”
“Now look here!” Purdy wailed. “I know f’r a fact that a piece of
property ’bout same size, right near, sold for less ’n eighty-five
hundred, ’twa’n’t two years ago, and here you fellows are asking me
twenty-four thousand dollars! Why, I’d have to mortgage-- I wouldn’t mind
so much paying twelve thousand but-- Why good God, Mr. Babbitt, you’re
asking more ’n twice its value! And threatening to ruin me if I don’t
take it!”
“Purdy, I don’t like your way of talking! I don’t like it one little
bit! Supposing Lyte and I were stinking enough to want to ruin any
fellow human, don’t you suppose we know it’s to our own selfish interest
to have everybody in Zenith prosperous? But all this is beside the
point. Tell you what we’ll do: We’ll come down to twenty-three
thousand--five thousand down and the rest on mortgage--and if you want
to wreck the old shack and rebuild, I guess I can get Lyte here to
loosen up for a building-mortgage on good liberal terms. Heavens, man,
we’d be glad to oblige you! We don’t like these foreign grocery trusts
any better ’n you do! But it isn’t reasonable to expect us to sacrifice
eleven thousand or more just for neighborliness, _is_ it! How about it,
Lyte? You willing to come down?”
By warmly taking Purdy’s part, Babbitt persuaded the benevolent Mr. Lyte
to reduce his price to twenty-one thousand dollars. At the right moment
Babbitt snatched from a drawer the agreement he had had Miss McGoun type
out a week ago and thrust it into Purdy’s hands. He genially shook his
fountain pen to make certain that it was flowing, handed it to Purdy,
and approvingly watched him sign.
The work of the world was being done. Lyte had made something over nine
thousand dollars, Babbitt had made a four-hundred-and-fifty dollar
commission, Purdy had, by the sensitive mechanism of modern finance,
been provided with a business-building, and soon the happy inhabitants
of Linton would have meat lavished upon them at prices only a little
higher than those down-town.
It had been a manly battle, but after it Babbitt drooped. This was the
only really amusing contest he had been planning. There was nothing
ahead save details of leases, appraisals, mortgages.
He muttered, “Makes me sick to think of Lyte carrying off most of the
profit when I did all the work, the old skinflint! And-- What else have I
got to do to-day?... Like to take a good long vacation. Motor trip.
Something.”
He sprang up, rekindled by the thought of lunching with Paul Riesling.
CHAPTER V
I
Babbitt’s preparations for leaving the office to its feeble self during
the hour and a half of his lunch-period were somewhat less elaborate
than the plans for a general European war.
He fretted to Miss McGoun, “What time you going to lunch? Well, make
sure Miss Bannigan is in then. Explain to her that if Wiedenfeldt calls
up, she’s to tell him I’m already having the title traced. And oh, b’
the way, remind me to-morrow to have Penniman trace it. Now if anybody
comes in looking for a cheap house, remember we got to shove that Bangor
Road place off onto somebody. If you need me, I’ll be at the Athletic
Club. And--uh-- And--uh-- I’ll be back by two.”
He dusted the cigar-ashes off his vest. He placed a difficult unanswered
letter on the pile of unfinished work, that he might not fail to attend
to it that afternoon. (For three noons, now, he had placed the same
letter on the unfinished pile.) He scrawled on a sheet of yellow
backing-paper the memorandum: “See abt apt h drs,” which gave him an
agreeable feeling of having already seen about the apartment-house
doors.
He discovered that he was smoking another cigar. He threw it away,
protesting, “Darn it, I thought you’d quit this darn smoking!” He
courageously returned the cigar-box to the correspondence-file, locked
it up, hid the key in a more difficult place, and raged, “Ought to take
care of myself. And need more exercise--walk to the club, every single
noon--just what I’ll do--every noon--cut out this motoring all the
time.”
The resolution made him feel exemplary. Immediately after it he decided
that this noon it was too late to walk.
It took but little more time to start his car and edge it into the
traffic than it would have taken to walk the three and a half blocks to
the club.
II
As he drove he glanced with the fondness of familiarity at the
buildings.
A stranger suddenly dropped into the business-center of Zenith could not
have told whether he was in a city of Oregon or Georgia, Ohio or Maine,
Oklahoma or Manitoba. But to Babbitt every inch was individual and
stirring. As always he noted that the California Building across the way
was three stories lower, therefore three stories less beautiful, than
his own Reeves Building. As always when he passed the Parthenon Shoe
Shine Parlor, a one-story hut which beside the granite and red-brick
ponderousness of the old California Building resembled a bath-house
under a cliff, he commented, “Gosh, ought to get my shoes shined this
afternoon. Keep forgetting it.” At the Simplex Office Furniture Shop,
the National Cash Register Agency, he yearned for a dictaphone, for a
typewriter which would add and multiply, as a poet yearns for quartos or
a physician for radium.
At the Nobby Men’s Wear Shop he took his left hand off the
steering-wheel to touch his scarf, and thought well of himself as one
who bought expensive ties “and could pay cash for ’em, too, by golly;”
and at the United Cigar Store, with its crimson and gold alertness, he
reflected, “Wonder if I need some cigars--idiot--plumb forgot--going t’
cut down my fool smoking.” He looked at his bank, the Miners’ and
Drovers’ National, and considered how clever and solid he was to bank
with so marbled an establishment. His high moment came in the clash of
traffic when he was halted at the corner beneath the lofty Second
National Tower. His car was banked with four others in a line of steel
restless as cavalry, while the crosstown traffic, limousines and
enormous moving-vans and insistent motor-cycles, poured by; on the
farther corner, pneumatic riveters rang on the sun-plated skeleton of a
new building; and out of this tornado flashed the inspiration of a
familiar face, and a fellow Booster shouted, “H’ are you, George!”