Babbitt

ng the beds into low closets the bedrooms were converted into living-rooms. The kitchens were cupboards each containing an electric range, a copper sink, a g

omed blonde. When she condescended to be good-humored she was nervously amusing. Her comments on people were saltily satiric and penetrative of accepted hypocrisies. "That's so!" you said, and looked she

ate for Congress, was a flatulent fool (which was quite true). The Babbitts and Rieslings sat doubtfully on stone-hard brocade chairs in the small living-room of the flat, with its mantel unprovided with a fire

lump smilingness, "Does Paul get as tired after the winter's work as Georgie does?" then Zilla remembered an

ds to be meek so he can have his own way. And me, I get the credit for being a terrible old crank, but if I didn't blow up once in a while and get something started, we'd die of dry-rot. He never wants to go any place and-Why, last evening, just because the car was out of o

u're keeping the whole car from starting!' he said, and then I saw he was one of these dirty ill-bred hogs that kindness is wasted on, and so I stopped and looked right at him, and I said, 'I-beg-your-pardon, I am not doing anything of the kind,' I said, 'it's the people ahead of me, who won't move up,' I said, 'and furthermore, let me tell you, young man, that you're a low-down, foul-mouthed, impertinent skunk,' I said,

"We all know I'm a mollycoddle, and you're

ll of the joy of righteousness and bad temper. She was a crusader and, like every crusader, she exulted in t

being such

ill noon and play your idiotic fiddle till midnight! You're born lazy

lla; you don't mean a word o

nd I mean every sin

d so-at first. She was placid and puffy and mature, where Zilla, at forty-five, was so bleached and tight-c

be poor, we'd be in the poorh

ovely if the Boys could run off by themselves. I've been coaxing George to go up to Maine ahead of the rest of us, and get

Paul was startled out of impassivity. He

e go, and not have to watch him. Fat old Georgie!

priceless immorality when Paul interrupted him-and Paul

mply I have a lo

, I

when I haven't found some nice little girl to comfort me, and as long as you continue yo

words could not be distingui

s suitable to the Revelstoke Arms had been slashed into raw hatreds, it was Babbitt who was the most formidable. He leaped up.

And let me tell you that Paul is the finest boy God ever made. Every decent person is sick and tired of your taking advantage of being a woman and springing every mean innuendo you can think of. Who the hell are y

I've never-nobody ever talked t

ind your back! Always! They say you'r

ed stolidly. He felt that he was the all-powerful official in charge; that Paul

She begged, "

certai

y sorry! I'll kill myself! I'll do

To the connoisseur of scenes, nothing is more enjoy

beat it off to Maine wit

e just said I was an idiot and n

that the minute he gets out of your sight, he'll go chasing after some petticoat. M

eorge. I know I was bad. Oh, for

njoye

forgave piously, and as he went parading out

rse it was the only way to handle her. G

ere showing off. You were having a lovely tim

ight of expected you to not stand by me! I migh

at. And she broods too much. And she used to be so pretty and gay, and she resents losing it. And you were just

vel of outraged nobility all the four blocks home. At the door h

ormal sensitiveness; it was one of the few times in his life when he had queried his eternal excellence; and he perceived the summer

to Paul, "Say, this is pretty good, eh? To be buying the stuff, eh? And good old Willis Ijams himself coming down on the floor to wait on us! Say, if those fellows that are getting their kit for the North Lakes k

and folding chairs and ice-boxes. He simple-heartedly wanted to buy all of them. It wa

, discussed flies. "Now, of course, you boys know." he said, "the great scrap i

ulminated Babbitt, who knew very l

up well on these pale evening dims, and silver sedges

what it is-a fly!

t," said Ijams, "is a

rop one of those red ants on the water!" asserted Babbitt

ll take it, too," said Ijams, who

cle George with his khaki pants on haulin

I

ine, incredibly without their families. They were free, in

s lights. Babbitt was immensely conscious, in the sway and authoritative clatter of the train

ace, a knife-edged man in a green velour hat, a very young young man with an imitation amber cigarette-holder, and Babbitt. Facing them, on two movable leather chairs, were Paul and a lanky, old-fashioned man, very cunning, with wrink

loried. "Say, if a fellow knows the ropes there h

I figured you were a bad man when I saw y

ghtedly laid do

s I seen some things in the Arbor y

you lapped up the malted milk

k. Only Paul, sitting by himself, reading at a serial story in a newspaper, failed to j

ideas and expressed them always with the same ponderous and brassy assurance. If it was not Babbitt

on't know how you fellows feel about prohibition, but the way it strikes me is that it's a mighty beneficial thing

ight to interfere with a fellow's per

an Outsider; he was not one of the Old Families of the smoking-compartment. They looked upon him bleakly an

outh. Business conditions not very goo

act! Not ver

ike me they wer

to nor

n't hardly s

sagely and decided, "Yump

t what they ought to be out Wes

: these hotels that've been charging five bucks a day-yes, and maybe six-seven!-for a

St. Francis at San Francisco for the first time, the ot

The St. Francis is a swe

right with you. It's

ays, and I told 'em so. You know how I am-well, maybe you don't know, but I'm accustomed to first-class accommodations, and I'm perfectly willing to pay a reasonable price. I got into Chicago late the other night, and the Rippleton's near the station-I'd never been there befo

nno, friend, I'll see,' and he ducks behind the rigamajig they keep track of the rooms on. Well, I guess he called up the Credit Association and the American Security League to see if I was all right-he certainly took long enough-or maybe he just went to sleep; but f

ts it go at that. Well, the clerk wakes a nice young bell hop-fine lad-not a day over seventy-nine years old-fought at the Battle of Gettysburg and doesn't know it's over yet-thought I was one of the Confederates, I guess, from the way he looked at

. Now, when I go to Chicago I always stay at the

ver stay at the Birchdale

dale is a firs

els in South Bend, Flint, Dayton, Tulsa, Wichita,

went into a store back home and asked to see a suit, and the fellow yanks out some hand-me-downs that, honest, I wouldn't put on a hired man. Just out of curiosity I asks him, 'What you charging for that junk?' 'Junk,' he says, 'what d' you mean junk? That's a swell piece of goods, all wool-' Like hell! It was nice vegetable wool, right off the Ole

er. And just look at

collars? I'm selling collars! D' you realize the cost of lab

cated that the purpose of manufacturing a plow or a brick was so that it might be sold. To them, the Romantic Hero was no longer the knight, the wandering poet, the cowpuncher, the aviator, nor the brave young district attorney, but the great sales-manager, who had an An

stened to the fat man's remarks on "the value of house-organs and bulletins as a method of jazzing-up the Boys out on the road;" and he himself offered one or two

ill which flared in scarlet and orange flame that licked at the c

at that-beautif

and they tell me old John Shelling made a good three million bones out

ight pulls that picturesque yard, all littered

great little eye for picturesque places and quaint sights and all that stuff

he velour hat grunted, "Well, personally, I think Shelling-Horton keep their works awful dirty. Bum ro

newspaper and the conversatio

get into Pittsbur

t was last year's schedule-wait a minute

if we're

must be just

ere seven minutes l

hy, gosh, I thought w

bout seven m

right; seven

negro in white jack

e, George?" gro

, folding towels and deftly tossing them up on the rack above the washbo

these niggers, nowadays. They

, no! They got to be lawyers and professors and Lord knows what all! I tell you, it's becoming a pretty serious problem. We ought to get together and show the black man, yes, and the yellow man, his place. Now, I h

ank the Lord, we're putting a limit on immigration. These Dagoes and Hunkies have got to learn that this is a white man's country, and they ain't wanted here. When we

topics. They rapidly reviewed motor-car prices, tire-mileage, oi

dy he had asserted that he was "an old he-one." He leaned forward, gathered in their attention by his expre

very lively

e about-" Babbitt was expansive and virile. When the train stopped at an important station, the four men walked up and down the cement platform, under the vast smoky train-shed roof, like a stormy sky, under the elevated footways, beside crates of ducks and sides of beef, in the mystery of an unknown city. They strolled abreast, old friends and well con

t the lady who wished to be wild. He raised the shade; he lay with a puffy arm tucked between his head and the skimpy