CHAPTER V

by Sinclair Lewis

　　CHAPTER VBABBITT'S preparations for leaving the office to its feeble self duringthe hour and a half of his lunch-period were somewhat less elaboratethan the plans for a general European war.He fretted to Miss McGoun, "What time you going to lunch? Well, makesure Miss Bannigan is in then. Explain to her that if Wiedenfeldt callsup, 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 anybodycomes in looking for a cheap house, remember we got to shove that BangorRoad place off onto somebody. If you need me, I'll be at the AthleticClub. And--uh--And--uh--I'll be back by two."He dusted the cigar-ashes off his vest. He placed a difficult unansweredletter on the pile of unfinished work, that he might not fail to attendto it that afternoon. (For three noons, now, he had placed the sameletter on the unfinished pile.) He scrawled on a sheet of yellowbacking-paper the memorandum: "See abt apt h drs," which gave him anagreeable feeling of having already seen about the apartment-housedoors.He discovered that he was smoking another cigar. He threw it away,protesting, "Darn it, I thought you'd quit this darn smoking!" Hecourageously returned the cigar-box to the correspondence-file, lockedit up, hid the key in a more difficult place, and raged, "Ought to takecare of myself. And need more exercise--walk to the club, every singlenoon--just what I'll do--every noon-cut out this motoring all the time."The resolution made him feel exemplary. Immediately after it he decidedthat this noon it was too late to walk.It took but little more time to start his car and edge it into thetraffic than it would have taken to walk the three and a half blocks tothe club.IIAs he drove he glanced with the fondness of familiarity at thebuildings.A stranger suddenly dropped into the business-center of Zenith could nothave told whether he was in a city of Oregon or Georgia, Ohio or Maine,Oklahoma or Manitoba. But to Babbitt every inch was individual andstirring. As always he noted that the California Building across the waywas three stories lower, therefore three stories less beautiful, thanhis own Reeves Building. As always when he passed the Parthenon ShoeShine Parlor, a one-story hut which beside the granite and red-brickponderousness of the old California Building resembled a bath-houseunder a cliff, he commented, "Gosh, ought to get my shoes shined thisafternoon. Keep forgetting it." At the Simplex Office Furniture Shop,the National Cash Register Agency, he yearned for a dictaphone, for atypewriter which would add and multiply, as a poet yearns for quartos ora physician for radium.At the Nobby Men's Wear Shop he took his left hand off thesteering-wheel to touch his scarf, and thought well of himself as onewho bought expensive ties "and could pay cash for 'em, too, by golly;"and at the United Cigar Store, with its crimson and gold alertness, hereflected, "Wonder if I need some cigars--idiot--plumb forgot--goingt' cut down my fool smoking." He looked at his bank, the Miners' andDrovers' National, and considered how clever and solid he was to bankwith so marbled an establishment. His high moment came in the clashof traffic when he was halted at the corner beneath the lofty SecondNational Tower. His car was banked with four others in a line of steelrestless as cavalry, while the cross town traffic, limousines andenormous moving-vans and insistent motor-cycles, poured by; on thefarther corner, pneumatic riveters rang on the sun-plated skeleton ofa new building; and out of this tornado flashed the inspiration ofa familiar face, and a fellow Booster shouted, "H' are you, George!"Babbitt waved in neighborly affection, and slid on with the traffic asthe policeman lifted his hand. He noted how quickly his car picked up.He felt superior and powerful, like a shuttle of polished steel dartingin a vast machine.As always he ignored the next two blocks, decayed blocks not yetreclaimed from the grime and shabbiness of the Zenith of 1885. Whilehe was passing the five-and-ten-cent store, the Dakota Lodging House,Concordia Hall with its lodge-rooms and the offices of fortune-tellersand chiropractors, he thought of how much money he made, and he boasteda little and worried a little and did old familiar sums:"Four hundred fifty plunks this morning from the Lyte deal. But taxesdue. Let's see: I ought to pull out eight thousand net this year, andsave fifteen hundred of that--no, not if I put up garage and--Let'ssee: six hundred and forty clear last month, and twelve times six-fortymakes--makes--let see: six times twelve is seventy-two hundred and--Ohrats, anyway, I'll make eight thousand--gee now, that's not so bad;mighty few fellows pulling down eight thousand dollars a year--eightthousand good hard iron dollars--bet there isn't more than five percent. of the people in the whole United States that make more thanUncle George does, by golly! Right up at the top of the heap! But--Wayexpenses are--Family wasting gasoline, and always dressed likemillionaires, and sending that eighty a month to Mother--And all thesestenographers and salesmen gouging me for every cent they can get--"The effect of his scientific budget-planning was that he felt at oncetriumphantly wealthy and perilously poor, and in the midst ofthese dissertations he stopped his car, rushed into a smallnews-and-miscellany shop, and bought the electric cigar-lighter whichhe had coveted for a week. He dodged his conscience by being jerky andnoisy, and by shouting at the clerk, "Guess this will prett' near payfor itself in matches, eh?"It was a pretty thing, a nickeled cylinder with an almost silverysocket, to be attached to the dashboard of his car. It was not only, asthe placard on the counter observed, "a dandy little refinement,lending the last touch of class to a gentleman's auto," but a pricelesstime-saver. By freeing him from halting the car to light a match, itwould in a month or two easily save ten minutes.As he drove on he glanced at it. "Pretty nice. Always wanted one," hesaid wistfully. "The one thing a smoker needs, too."Then he remembered that he had given up smoking."Darn it!" he mourned. "Oh well, I suppose I'll hit a cigar once in awhile. And--Be a great convenience for other folks. Might make justthe difference in getting chummy with some fellow that would put overa sale. And--Certainly looks nice there. Certainly is a mighty cleverlittle jigger. Gives the last touch of refinement and class. I--Bygolly, I guess I can afford it if I want to! Not going to be the onlymember of this family that never has a single doggone luxury!"Thus, laden with treasure, after three and a half blocks of romanticadventure, he drove up to the club.IIIThe Zenith Athletic Club is not athletic and it isn't exactly a club,but it is Zenith in perfection. It has an active and smoke-mistedbilliard room, it is represented by baseball and football teams, and inthe pool and the gymnasium a tenth of the members sporadically try toreduce. But most of its three thousand members use it as a cafe in whichto lunch, play cards, tell stories, meet customers, and entertain out-oftown uncles at dinner. It is the largest club in the city, and its chiefhatred is the conservative Union Club, which all sound members of theAthletic call "a rotten, snobbish, dull, expensive old hole--not oneGood Mixer in the place--you couldn't hire me to join." Statistics showthat no member of the Athletic has ever refused election to the Union,and of those who are elected, sixty-seven per cent. resign from theAthletic and are thereafter heard to say, in the drowsy sanctity of theUnion lounge, "The Athletic would be a pretty good hotel, if it weremore exclusive."The Athletic Club building is nine stories high, yellow brick withglassy roof-garden above and portico of huge limestone columns below.The lobby, with its thick pillars of porous Caen stone, its pointedvaulting, and a brown glazed-tile floor like well-baked bread-crust, isa combination of cathedral-crypt and rathskellar. The members rush intothe lobby as though they were shopping and hadn't much time for it. Thusdid Babbitt enter, and to the group standing by the cigar-counter hewhooped, "How's the boys? How's the boys? Well, well, fine day!"Jovially they whooped back--Vergil Gunch, the coal-dealer, SidneyFinkelstein, the ladies'-ready-to-wear buyer for Parcher & Stein'sdepartment-store, and Professor Joseph K. Pumphrey, owner of the RitewayBusiness College and instructor in Public Speaking, Business English,Scenario Writing, and Commercial Law. Though Babbitt admired thissavant, and appreciated Sidney Finkelstein as "a mighty smart buyerand a good liberal spender," it was to Vergil Gunch that he turned withenthusiasm. Mr. Gunch was president of the Boosters' Club, a weeklylunch-club, local chapter of a national organization which promotedsound business and friendliness among Regular Fellows. He was also noless an official than Esteemed Leading Knight in the Benevolent andProtective Order of Elks, and it was rumored that at the next electionhe would be a candidate for Exalted Ruler. He was a jolly man, given tooratory and to chumminess with the arts. He called on the famousactors and vaudeville artists when they came to town, gave them cigars,addressed them by their first names, and--sometimes--succeededin bringing them to the Boosters' lunches to give The Boys a FreeEntertainment. He was a large man with hair en brosse, and he knew thelatest jokes, but he played poker close to the chest. It was at hisparty that Babbitt had sucked in the virus of to-day's restlessness.Gunch shouted, "How's the old Bolsheviki? How do you feel, the morningafter the night before?""Oh, boy! Some head! That was a regular party you threw, Verg! Hopeyou haven't forgotten I took that last cute little jack-pot!" Babbittbellowed. (He was three feet from Gunch.)"That's all right now! What I'll hand you next time, Georgie! Say, juhnotice in the paper the way the New York Assembly stood up to the Reds?""You bet I did. That was fine, eh? Nice day to-day.""Yes, it's one mighty fine spring day, but nights still cold.""Yeh, you're right they are! Had to have coupla blankets last night,out on the sleeping-porch. Say, Sid," Babbitt turned to Finkelstein, thebuyer, "got something wanta ask you about. I went out and bought me anelectric cigar-lighter for the car, this noon, and--""Good hunch!" said Finkelstein, while even the learned ProfessorPumphrey, a bulbous man with a pepper-and-salt cutaway and a pipe-organvoice, commented, "That makes a dandy accessory. Cigar-lighter givestone to the dashboard.""Yep, finally decided I'd buy me one. Got the best on the market, theclerk said it was. Paid five bucks for it. Just wondering if I gotstuck. What do they charge for 'em at the store, Sid?"Finkelstein asserted that five dollars was not too great a sum, not fora really high-class lighter which was suitably nickeled and providedwith connections of the very best quality. "I always say--and believeme, I base it on a pretty fairly extensive mercantile experience--thebest is the cheapest in the long run. Of course if a fellow wants to bea Jew about it, he can get cheap junk, but in the long RUN, the cheapestthing is--the best you can get! Now you take here just th' other day:I got a new top for my old boat and some upholstery, and I paid out ahundred and twenty-six fifty, and of course a lot of fellows would saythat was too much--Lord, if the Old Folks--they live in one of thesehick towns up-state and they simply can't get onto the way a cityfellow's mind works, and then, of course, they're Jews, and they'dlie right down and die if they knew Sid had anted up a hundred andtwenty-six bones. But I don't figure I was stuck, George, not a bit.Machine looks brand new now--not that it's so darned old, of course; hadit less 'n three years, but I give it hard service; never drive less'n a hundred miles on Sunday and, uh--Oh, I don't really think yougot stuck, George. In the LONG run, the best is, you might say, it'sunquestionably the cheapest.""That's right," said Vergil Gunch. "That's the way I look at it. If afellow is keyed up to what you might call intensive living, the way youget it here in Zenith--all the hustle and mental activity that's goingon with a bunch of live-wires like the Boosters and here in the Z.A.C.,why, he's got to save his nerves by having the best."Babbitt nodded his head at every fifth word in the roaring rhythm; andby the conclusion, in Gunch's renowned humorous vein, he was enchanted:"Still, at that, George, don't know's you can afford it. I've heard yourbusiness has been kind of under the eye of the gov'ment since you stolethe tail of Eathorne Park and sold it!""Oh, you're a great little josher, Verg. But when it comes to kidding,how about this report that you stole the black marble steps off thepost-office and sold 'em for high-grade coal!" In delight Babbitt pattedGunch's back, stroked his arm."That's all right, but what I want to know is: who's the real-estateshark that bought that coal for his apartment-houses?""I guess that'll hold you for a while, George!" said Finkelstein. "I'lltell you, though, boys, what I did hear: George's missus went into thegents' wear department at Parcher's to buy him some collars, and beforeshe could give his neck-size the clerk slips her some thirteens. 'Howjuh know the size?' says Mrs. Babbitt, and the clerk says, 'Men thatlet their wives buy collars for 'em always wear thirteen, madam.' How'sthat! That's pretty good, eh? How's that, eh? I guess that'll about fixyou, George!""I--I--" Babbitt sought for amiable insults in answer. He stopped,stared at the door. Paul Riesling was coming in. Babbitt cried, "See youlater, boys," and hastened across the lobby. He was, just then, neitherthe sulky child of the sleeping-porch, the domestic tyrant of thebreakfast table, the crafty money-changer of the Lyte-Purdy conference,nor the blaring Good Fellow, the Josher and Regular Guy, of the AthleticClub. He was an older brother to Paul Riesling, swift to defend him,admiring him with a proud and credulous love passing the love of women.Paul and he shook hands solemnly; they smiled as shyly as though theyhad been parted three years, not three days--and they said:"How's the old horse-thief?""All right, I guess. How're you, you poor shrimp?""I'm first-rate, you second-hand hunk o' cheese."Reassured thus of their high fondness, Babbitt grunted, "You're a fineguy, you are! Ten minutes late!" Riesling snapped, "Well, you're luckyto have a chance to lunch with a gentleman!" They grinned and went intothe Neronian washroom, where a line of men bent over the bowls insetalong a prodigious slab of marble as in religious prostration beforetheir own images in the massy mirror. Voices thick, satisfied,authoritative, hurtled along the marble walls, bounded from the ceilingof lavender-bordered milky tiles, while the lords of the city, thebarons of insurance and law and fertilizers and motor tires, laid downthe law for Zenith; announced that the day was warm-indeed, indisputablyof spring; that wages were too high and the interest on mortgages toolow; that Babe Ruth, the eminent player of baseball, was a noble man;and that "those two nuts at the Climax Vaudeville Theater this weekcertainly are a slick pair of actors." Babbitt, though ordinarily hisvoice was the surest and most episcopal of all, was silent. In thepresence of the slight dark reticence of Paul Riesling, he was awkward,he desired to be quiet and firm and deft.The entrance lobby of the Athletic Club was Gothic, the washroom RomanImperial, the lounge Spanish Mission, and the reading-room inChinese Chippendale, but the gem of the club was the dining-room, themasterpiece of Ferdinand Reitman, Zenith's busiest architect. It waslofty and half-timbered, with Tudor leaded casements, an oriel, asomewhat musicianless musicians'-gallery, and tapestries believedto illustrate the granting of Magna Charta. The open beams hadbeen hand-adzed at Jake Offutt's car-body works, the hinge; were ofhand-wrought iron, the wainscot studded with handmade wooden pegs, andat one end of the room was a heraldic and hooded stone fireplace whichthe club's advertising-pamphlet asserted to be not only larger than anyof the fireplaces in European castles but of a draught incomparably morescientific. It was also much cleaner, as no fire had ever been built init.Half of the tables were mammoth slabs which seated twenty or thirty men.Babbitt usually sat at the one near the door, with a group includingGunch, Finkelstein, Professor Pumphrey, Howard Littlefield, hisneighbor, T. Cholmondeley Frink, the poet and advertising-agent, andOrville Jones, whose laundry was in many ways the best in Zenith. Theycomposed a club within the club, and merrily called themselves "TheRoughnecks." To-day as he passed their table the Roughnecks greeted him,"Come on, sit in! You 'n' Paul too proud to feed with poor folks? Afraidsomebody might stick you for a bottle of Bevo, George? Strikes me youswells are getting awful darn exclusive!"He thundered, "You bet! We can't afford to have our reps ruined by beingseen with you tightwads!" and guided Paul to one of the small tablesbeneath the musicians'-gallery. He felt guilty. At the Zenith AthleticClub, privacy was very bad form. But he wanted Paul to himself.That morning he had advocated lighter lunches and now he ordered nothingbut English mutton chop, radishes, peas, deep-dish apple pie, a bit ofcheese, and a pot of coffee with cream, adding, as he did invariably,"And uh--Oh, and you might give me an order of French fried potatoes."When the chop came he vigorously peppered it and salted it. He alwayspeppered and salted his meat, and vigorously, before tasting it.Paul and he took up the spring-like quality of the spring, the virtuesof the electric cigar-lighter, and the action of the New York StateAssembly. It was not till Babbitt was thick and disconsolate with muttongrease that he flung out:"I wound up a nice little deal with Conrad Lyte this morning that putfive hundred good round plunks in my pocket. Pretty nice--pretty nice!And yet--I don't know what's the matter with me to-day. Maybe it's anattack of spring fever, or staying up too late at Verg Gunch's, or maybeit's just the winter's work piling up, but I've felt kind of down in themouth all day long. Course I wouldn't beef about it to the fellows atthe Roughnecks' Table there, but you--Ever feel that way, Paul? Kindof comes over me: here I've pretty much done all the things I ought to;supported my family, and got a good house and a six-cylinder car, andbuilt up a nice little business, and I haven't any vices 'specially,except smoking--and I'm practically cutting that out, by the way. And Ibelong to the church, and play enough golf to keep in trim, and I onlyassociate with good decent fellows. And yet, even so, I don't know thatI'm entirely satisfied!"It was drawled out, broken by shouts from the neighboring tables, bymechanical love-making to the waitress, by stertorous grunts as thecoffee filled him with dizziness and indigestion. He was apologetic anddoubtful, and it was Paul, with his thin voice, who pierced the fog:"Good Lord, George, you don't suppose it's any novelty to me to findthat we hustlers, that think we're so all-fired successful, aren'tgetting much out of it? You look as if you expected me to report you asseditious! You know what my own life's been.""I know, old man.""I ought to have been a fiddler, and I'm a pedler of tar-roofing! AndZilla--Oh, I don't want to squeal, but you know as well as I do abouthow inspiring a wife she is.... Typical instance last evening: We wentto the movies. There was a big crowd waiting in the lobby, us at thetail-end. She began to push right through it with her 'Sir, how dareyou?' manner--Honestly, sometimes when I look at her and see how she'salways so made up and stinking of perfume and looking for trouble andkind of always yelping, 'I tell yuh I'm a lady, damn yuh!'--why, I wantto kill her! Well, she keeps elbowing through the crowd, me after her,feeling good and ashamed, till she's almost up to the velvet rope andready to be the next let in. But there was a little squirt of a manthere--probably been waiting half an hour--I kind of admired the littlecuss--and he turns on Zilla and says, perfectly polite, 'Madam, why areyou trying to push past me?' And she simply--God, I was so ashamed!--sherips out at him, 'You're no gentleman,' and she drags me into it andhollers, 'Paul, this person insulted me!' and the poor skate he gotready to fight."I made out I hadn't heard them--sure! same as you wouldn't hear aboiler-factoryI can tell you exactly howevery tile looks in the ceiling of that lobby; there's one with brownspots on it like the face of the devil--and all the time the peoplethere--they were packed in like sardines--they kept making remarksabout us, and Zilla went right on talking about the little chap, andscreeching that 'folks like him oughtn't to be admitted in a placethat's SUPPOSED to be for ladies and gentlemen,' and 'Paul, will youkindly call the manager, so I can report this dirty rat?' and--Oof!Maybe I wasn't glad when I could sneak inside and hide in the dark!"After twenty-four years of that kind of thing, you don't expect me tofall down and foam at the mouth when you hint that this sweet, clean,respectable, moral life isn't all it's cracked up to be, do you? I can'teven talk about it, except to you, because anybody else would think Iwas yellow. Maybe I am. Don't care any longer.... Gosh, you've had tostand a lot of whining from me, first and last, Georgie!""Rats, now, Paul, you've never really what you could call whined.Sometimes--I'm always blowing to Myra and the kids about what a whale ofa realtor I am, and yet sometimes I get a sneaking idea I'm not such aPierpont Morgan as I let on to be. But if I ever do help by jollying youalong, old Paulski, I guess maybe Saint Pete may let me in after all!""Yuh, you're an old blow-hard, Georgie, you cheerful cut-throat, butyou've certainly kept me going.""Why don't you divorce Zilla?""Why don't I! If I only could! If she'd just give me the chance! Youcouldn't hire her to divorce me, no, nor desert me. She's too fond ofher three squares and a few pounds of nut-center chocolates in between.If she'd only be what they call unfaithful to me! George, I don't wantto be too much of a stinker; back in college I'd 've thought a man whocould say that ought to be shot at sunrise. But honestly, I'd be tickledto death if she'd really go making love with somebody. Fat chance! Ofcourse she'll flirt with anything--you know how she holds hands andlaughs--that laugh--that horrible brassy laugh--the way she yaps, 'Younaughty man, you better be careful or my big husband will be afteryou!'--and the guy looking me over and thinking, 'Why, you cute littlething, you run away now or I'll spank you!' And she'll let him go justfar enough so she gets some excitement out of it and then she'll beginto do the injured innocent and have a beautiful time wailing, 'Ididn't think you were that kind of a person.' They talk about thesedemi-vierges in stories--""These WHATS?""--but the wise, hard, corseted, old married women like Zilla are worsethan any bobbed-haired girl that ever went boldly out into this-herestorm of life--and kept her umbrella slid up her sleeve! But rats, youknow what Zilla is. How she nags--nags--nags. How she wants everything Ican buy her, and a lot that I can't, and how absolutely unreasonable sheis, and when I get sore and try to have it out with her she plays thePerfect Lady so well that even I get fooled and get all tangled up ina lot of 'Why did you say's' and 'I didn't mean's.' I'll tell you,Georgie: You know my tastes are pretty fairly simple--in the matter offood, at least. Course, as you're always complaining, I do like decentcigars--not those Flor de Cabagos you're smoking--""That's all right now! That's a good two-for. By the way, Paul, did Itell you I decided to practically cut out smok--""Yes you--At the same time, if I can't get what I like, why, I cando without it. I don't mind sitting down to burnt steak, with cannedpeaches and store cake for a thrilling little dessert afterwards, butI do draw the line at having to sympathize with Zilla because she'sso rotten bad-tempered that the cook has quit, and she's been so busysitting in a dirty lace negligee all afternoon, reading about some bravemanly Western hero, that she hasn't had time to do any cooking. You'realways talking about 'morals'--meaning monogamy, I suppose. You've beenthe rock of ages to me, all right, but you're essentially a simp. You--""Where d' you get that 'simp,' little man? Let me tell you--""--love to look earnest and inform the world that it's the 'duty ofresponsible business men to be strictly moral, as an example to thecommunity.' In fact you're so earnest about morality, old Georgie, thatI hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath. Allright, you can--""Wait, wait now! What's--""--talk about morals all you want to, old thing, but believe me, ifit hadn't been for you and an occasional evening playing the violin toTerrill O'Farrell's 'cello, and three or four darling girls that let meforget this beastly joke they call 'respectable life,' I'd 've killedmyself years ago."And business! The roofing business! Roofs for cowsheds! Oh, I don'tmean I haven't had a lot of fun out of the Game; out of putting it overon the labor unions, and seeing a big check coming in, and the businessincreasing. But what's the use of it? You know, my business isn'tdistributing roofing--it's principally keeping my competitors fromdistributing roofing. Same with you. All we do is cut each other'sthroats and make the public pay for it!""Look here now, Paul! You're pretty darn near talking socialism!""Oh yes, of course I don't really exactly mean that--I s'pose.Course--competition--brings out the best--survival of thefittest--but--But I mean: Take all these fellows we know, the kindright here in the club now, that seem to be perfectly content with theirhome-life and their businesses, and that boost Zenith and the Chamberof Commerce and holler for a million population. I bet if you couldcut into their heads you'd find that one-third of 'em are sure-enoughsatisfied with their wives and kids and friends and their offices; andone-third feel kind of restless but won't admit it; and one-third aremiserable and know it. They hate the whole peppy, boosting, go-aheadgame, and they're bored by their wives and think their families arefools--at least when they come to forty or forty-five they're bored--andthey hate business, and they'd go--Why do you suppose there's so many'mysterious' suicides? Why do you suppose so many Substantial Citizensjumped right into the war? Think it was all patriotism?"Babbitt snorted, "What do you expect? Think we were sent into the worldto 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 deuceMan really was made for!""Well we know--not just in the Bible alone, but it stands to reason--aman who doesn't buckle down and do his duty, even if it does bore himsometimes, 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 boredby his wife, do you seriously mean he has a right to chuck her and takea sneak, or even kill himself?""Good Lord, I don't know what 'rights' a man has! And I don't know thesolution of boredom. If I did, I'd be the one philosopher that had thecure for living. But I do know that about ten times as many people findtheir lives dull, and unnecessarily dull, as ever admit it; and I dobelieve that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead ofbeing nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice andpatient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, wemight make life more fun."They drifted into a maze of speculation. Babbitt was elephantishlyuneasy. Paul was bold, but not quite sure about what he was being bold.Now and then Babbitt suddenly agreed with Paul in an admission whichcontradicted all his defense of duty and Christian patience, and at eachadmission he had a curious reckless joy. He said at last:"Look here, old Paul, you do a lot of talking about kicking things inthe face, but you never kick. Why don't you?""Nobody does. Habit too strong. But--Georgie, I've been thinking of onemild 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 keepsrooting for a nice expensive vacation in New York and Atlantic City,with the bright lights and the bootlegged cocktails and a bunch oflounge-lizards to dance with--but the Babbitts and the Rieslings aresure-enough going to Lake Sunasquam, aren't we? Why couldn't you and Imake some excuse--say business in New York--and get up to Maine four orfive days before they do, and just loaf by ourselves and smoke and cussand be natural?""Great! Great idea!" Babbitt admired.Not for fourteen years had he taken a holiday without his wife, andneither of them quite believed they could commit this audacity. Manymembers of the Athletic Club did go camping without their wives, butthey were officially dedicated to fishing and hunting, whereas thesacred and unchangeable sports of Babbitt and Paul Riesling weregolfing, motoring, and bridge. For either the fishermen or the golfersto have changed their habits would have been an infraction of theirself-imposed discipline which would have shocked all right-thinking andregularized citizens.Babbitt blustered, "Why don't we just put our foot down and say, 'We'regoing on ahead of you, and that's all there is to it!' Nothing criminalin it. Simply say to Zilla--""You don't say anything to Zilla simply. Why, Georgie, she's almost asmuch of a moralist as you are, and if I told her the truth she'd believewe were going to meet some dames in New York. And even Myra--she nevernags you, the way Zilla does, but she'd worry. She'd say, 'Don't youWANT me to go to Maine with you? I shouldn't dream of going unless youwanted me;' and you'd give in to save her feelings. Oh, the devil! Let'shave a shot at duck-pins."During the game of duck-pins, a juvenile form of bowling, Paul wassilent. As they came down the steps of the club, not more than half anhour after the time at which Babbitt had sternly told Miss McGoun hewould be back, Paul sighed, "Look here, old man, oughtn't to talkedabout 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 outwith my fool troubles!""Old Paul, your nerves are kind of on the bum. I'm going to take youaway. I'm going to rig this thing. I'm going to have an important dealin New York and--and sure, of course!--I'll need you to advise me on theroof of the building! And the ole deal will fall through, and there'llbe nothing for us but to go on ahead to Maine. I--Paul, when it comesright down to it, I don't care whether you bust loose or not. I do likehaving a rep for being one of the Bunch, but if you ever needed meI'd chuck it and come out for you every time! Not of course but whatyou're--course I don't mean you'd ever do anything that would put--thatwould put a decent position on the fritz but--See how I mean? I'm kindof 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'ttake any wooden money, Paulibus! See you soon! S' long!"