Babbitt

nd cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They we

king old houses, factories with stingy and sooted windows, wooden tenements colored like mud. The city was full of such grotesqueries, but the clean

n all-night rehearsal of a Little Theater play, an artistic adventure considerably illuminated by champagne. Below the bridge curved a

ubwomen, yawning, their old shoes slapping. The dawn mist spun away. Cues of men with lunch-boxes clumped toward the immensity of new factories, sheets of glass and hollow tile, glittering shops where five thousand men worked ben

eginning to awaken on the sleeping-porch of a Dutch Colonial hous

nd he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was

s were pads, and the unroughened hand which lay helpless upon the khaki-colored blanket was slightly puffy. He seemed prosperous, extremely married and unromantic; and altogether unromantic appeared this sleeping-porch,

When at last he could slip away from the crowded house he darted to her. His wife, his clamoring friends, sought to follow, but he escaped, the girl fleet beside him, and

bang of the

as pierced by the familiar and irritating rattle of some one cranking a Ford: snap-ah-ah, snap-ah-ah, snap-ah-ah. Himself a pious motorist, Babbitt cranked with the unseen driver, with him waited through taut hours for the roar of the starting engine, with him agonized as the roar ceased and again began the infernal patient snap-ah-ah-a round, flat sound, a shivering cold-morning sound, a sound

y till the alarm-clock

I

hments, including cathedral chime, intermittent alarm, and a phosphorescent dial. Babbitt was proud of b

fore, he had played poker at Vergil Gunch's till midnight, and after such holidays he was irritable before breakfast. It may have been the tremendous home-brewed beer of the prohibition-era and the

cheerful "Time to get up, Georgie boy," and the itchy sound, the

rough his wild hair, while his plump feet mechanically felt for his slippers. He looked regretfully at the blanket-forever a suggestion to him of free

ection, and made him also perfect. He regarded the corrugated iron garage. For the three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth time in a year he reflected, "No class to that tin shack. Have to build me a frame garage. But by golly it's the only thing on the place that isn't up-to-date!" While he

arried down the hard, clean, unus

d above the set bowl was a sensational exhibit of tooth-brush holder, shaving-brush holder, soap-dish, sponge-dish, and medicine-cabinet, so glittering and so ingenious that they resembled an electrical instrument-board. But the Babbitt whose god was Modern Appl

at, and slid against the tub. He said "Damn!" Furiously he snatched up his tube of shaving-cream, furiously he lathered, with a belligerent slapp

the problem, oft-pondered, never solved, of what to do with the old blade, which might imperil the fingers of his young. As usual, he tossed it on top of the medicine-cabinet, with a mental note that some day he must remove the fifty or sixty other blades that were also temporarily, piled up there. He finished his shaving in a growing testiness increased by his spinning headache and by the emptiness in his stomach. When he was done, his round face smooth and streamy and his eyes stinging from soapy water, he reached for a towel. The fam

put out a dry one for me-of course, I'm the goat!-and then I want one and-I'm the only person in the doggone house that's got the slightest doggone bi

and in the midst his wife serenely trotted in, observed serenely, "Why Georgie dear, what are you doing? Are you going to

ded that he was

he was sufficiently roused

r had reticences before her husband, and no longer worried about not having reticences. She was in a petticoat now, and corsets which bulged, and unaware of being seen in bulgy corsets. She had become so dully habituated to married life

to Babbitt for his having an alcoholic headache; and he recovered enough to endure the search for

le in the conferenc

he moved about mysteriously adjusting and patting her petticoat and, to his jaundiced eye, neve

oks awfully

gosh, it ne

o. Perhap

ld stand being pr

wouldn't hurt i

. No sense in having the whole darn suit

t's

ight. Look at them-look at those wrinkl

wear the brown coat with the blue trousers

o wear the coat of one suit and the pants of anot

gray suit to-day, and stop in at the

w where the devil is that gra

other crises of dressing with c

without thanking the God of Progress that he didn't wear tight, long, old-fashioned undergarments, like his father-in-law and partner, Henry Thompson. His second embellishment was com

ry best glass; the ear-pieces were thin bars of gold. In them he was the modern business man; one who gave orders to clerks and drove a car and played occasional golf and was scholarly in regard to Salesmanship. His head suddenl

oots, standard boots, extraordinarily uninteresting boots. The only frivolity was in his purple knitted scarf. With considerable comment on the matter to Mrs. Babbitt (who, acrobatically fastening the back of her blouse

were a gold penknife, silver cigar-cutter, seven keys (the use of two of which he had forgotten), and incidentally a good watch. Depending from the chain was a large, yellowish elk's-tooth-proclamation of his membership in the Brotherly and Protective Order of Elks. Most significant of all was his loose-leaf pocket note-book, that modern and efficient note-book which contained the addresses of pe

d to give him one, so he hadn't the habit, and people

ds: "Boosters-Pep!" It made Babbitt feel loyal and important. It associated him with Good Fellows, with men who were

kind of punk this morning," he said. "I think I had too much dinn

sked me to

themselves. I tell you at forty a man's a fool or his doctor-I mean, his own doctor. Folks don't give enough attention to this matter of dieting.

at home I always do

Funny, got a pain down here on the left side-but no, that wouldn't be appendicitis, would it? Last night, when I was driving over to Verg Gunch's, I felt a pain in my stomach, too. Right here it was-kind of a sharp shooting pai

had prunes you

at some of 'em. Anyway-I tell you it's mighty important to-I was saying to Verg

Gunches for our d

ure; y

nt you to put on your nice

t of 'em won't

't dress for the Littlefields' supper-party, and

sometimes. All a darn nuisance, anyway. All right for a woman, that stays around the house all the time, but when a fellow's worked like the dickens all day,

ere glad I'd insisted on your dressing. You said you felt a lot better for

hat's th

olks say. Suppose Lucile McKelv

aires! I suppose you're trying to rub in your exalted social position! Well, let me tell you that your revered paternal ancestor, Henry T., does

be horrid

itator or boss charity-worker or some damn thing! Lord, and Ted is just as bad! He wants to go to college, and he doesn't want to go to college. Only one of the three that knows her own mind is Tinka. Simply can't understand how I ever came to have a pair of shillyshallying children like Rone and Ted. I may not be any Rockefeller or James J. Shakespeare, but I certainly do know my own mind, and I do keep

ghts, was on a rise; and though the center of the city was three miles away-Zenith had between three and four hundred thous

soothed from his face, his slack chin lifted in reverence. All he articulated was "That's one lovely sight!" but he was inspired by the rhythm of the city; his love of it renewed. He beheld the tower as a temple-spire