8. CHAPTER VIII
I
THE great events of Babbitt's spring were the secret buying
of real-estate options in Linton for certain street-traction officials,
before the public announcement that the Linton Avenue
Car Line would be extended, and a dinner which was, as he
rejoiced to his wife, not only "a regular society spread but a
real sure-enough highbrow affair, with some of the keenest
intellects and the brightest bunch of little women in town.''
It was so absorbing an occasion that he almost forgot his
desire to run off to Maine with Paul Riesling.
Though he had been born in the village of Catawba, Babbitt
had risen to that metropolitan social plane on which hosts
have as many as four people at dinner without planning it for
more than an evening or two. But a dinner of twelve, with
flowers from the florist's and all the cut-glass out, staggered
even the Babbitts.
For two weeks they studied, debated, and arbitrated the list
of guests.
Babbitt marveled, "Of course we're up-to-date ourselves, but
still, think of us entertaining a famous poet like Chum Frink,
a fellow that on nothing but a poem or so every day and just
writing a few advertisements pulls down fifteen thousand berries
a year!''
"Yes, and Howard Littlefield. Do you know, the other evening
Eunice told me her papa speaks three languages!'' said
Mrs. Babbitt.
"Huh! That's nothing! So do I—American, baseball, and
poker!''
"I don't think it's nice to be funny about a matter like that.
Think how wonderful it must be to speak three languages, and
so useful and— And with people like that, I don't see why we
invite the Orville Joneses.''
"Well now, Orville is a mighty up-and-coming fellow!''
"Yes, I know, but— A laundry!''
"I'll admit a laundry hasn't got the class of poetry or real
estate, but just the same, Orvy is mighty deep. Ever start
him spieling about gardening? Say, that fellow can tell you
the name of every kind of tree, and some of their Greek and
Latin names too! Besides, we owe the Joneses a dinner. Besides,
gosh, we got to have some boob for audience, when a
bunch of hot-air artists like Frink and Littlefield get going.''
"Well, dear—I meant to speak of this—I do think that as
host you ought to sit back and listen, and let your guests have
a chance to talk once in a while!''
"Oh, you do, do you! Sure! I talk all the time! And I'm
just a business man—oh sure!—I'm no Ph.D. Iike Littlefield,
and no poet, and I haven't anything to spring! Well, let me
tell you, just the other day your darn Chum Frink comes up
to me at the club begging to know what I thought about the
Springfield school-bond issue. And who told him? I did!
You bet your life I told him! Little me! I certainly did! He
came up and asked me, and I told him all about it! You bet!
And he was darn glad to listen to me and— Duty as a host!
I guess I know my duty as a host and let me tell you—''
In fact, the Orville Joneses were invited.
II
On the morning of the dinner, Mrs. Babbitt was restive.
"Now, George, I want you to be sure and be home early tonight.
Remember, you have to dress.''
"Uh-huh. I see by the Advocate that the Presbyterian General
Assembly has voted to quit the Interchurch World Movement.
That—''
"George! Did you hear what I said? You must be home
in time to dress to-night.''
"Dress? Hell! I'm dressed now! Think I'm going down
to the office in my B.V.D.'s?''
"I will not have you talking indecently before the children!
And you do have to put on your dinner-jacket!''
"I guess you mean my Tux. I tell you, of all the doggone
nonsensical nuisances that was ever invented—''
Three minutes later, after Babbitt had wailed, "Well, I
don't know whether I'm going to dress or not'' in
a manner
which showed that he was going to dress, the discussion
moved on.
"Now, George, you mustn't forget to call in at Vecchia's
on the way home and get the ice cream. Their delivery-wagon
is broken down, and I don't want to trust them to send it
by—''
"All right! You told me that before breakfast!''
"Well, I don't want you to forget. I'll be working my head
off all day long, training the girl that's to help with the dinner—''
"All nonsense, anyway, hiring an extra girl for the feed.
Matilda could perfectly well—''
"—and I have to go out and buy the flowers, and fix them,
and set the table, and order the salted almonds, and look at the
chickens, and arrange for the children to have their supper upstairs
and— And I simply must depend on you to go to Vecchia's
for the ice cream.''
"All riiiiiight! Gosh, I'm going to get it!''
"All you have to do is to go in and say you want the ice
cream that Mrs. Babbitt ordered yesterday by 'phone, and it
will be all ready for you.''
At ten-thirty she telephoned to him not to forget the ice
cream from Vecchia's.
He was surprised and blasted then by a thought. He wondered
whether Floral Heights dinners were worth the hideous
toil involved. But he repented the sacrilege in the excitement
of buying the materials for cocktails.
Now this was the manner of obtaining alcohol under the
reign of righteousness and prohibition:
He drove from the severe rectangular streets of the modern
business center into the tangled byways of Old Town—
jagged blocks filled with sooty warehouses and lofts; on into
The Arbor, once a pleasant orchard but now a morass of
lodging-houses, tenements, and brothels. Exquisite shivers
chilled his spine and stomach, and he looked at every policeman
with intense innocence, as one who loved the law, and
admired the Force, and longed to stop and play with them.
He parked his car a block from Healey Hanson's saloon, worrying,
"Well, rats, if anybody did see me, they'd think I was
here on business.''
He entered a place curiously like the saloons of ante-prohibition
days, with a long greasy bar with sawdust in front and
streaky mirror behind, a pine table at which a dirty old man
dreamed over a glass of something which resembled whisky,
and with two men at the bar, drinking something which resembled
beer, and giving that impression of forming a large
crowd which two men always give in a saloon. The bartender,
a tall pale Swede with a diamond in his lilac scarf, stared
at Babbitt as he stalked plumply up to the bar and whispered,
"I'd, uh— Friend of Hanson's sent me here. Like to get some
gin.''
The bartender gazed down on him in the manner of an outraged
bishop. "I guess you got the wrong place, my friend. We
sell nothing but soft drinks here.'' He cleaned the bar with a
rag which would itself have done with a little cleaning, and
glared across his mechanically moving elbow.
The old dreamer at the table petitioned the bartender, "Say,
Oscar, listen.''
Oscar did not listen.
"Aw, say, Oscar, listen, will yuh? Say, lis-sen!''
The decayed and drowsy voice of the loafer, the agreeable
stink of beer-dregs, threw a spell of inanition over Babbitt.
The bartender moved grimly toward the crowd of two men.
Babbitt followed him as delicately as a cat, and wheedled,
"Say, Oscar, I want to speak to Mr. Hanson.''
"Whajuh wanta see him for?''
"I just want to talk to him. Here's my card.''
It was a beautiful card, an engraved card, a card in the
blackest black and the sharpest red, announcing that Mr.
George F. Babbitt was Estates, Insurance, Rents. The bartender
held it as though it weighed ten pounds, and read it
as though it were a hundred words long. He did not bend
from his episcopal dignity, hut he growled, "I'll see if he's
around.''
From the back room he brought an immensely old young
man, a quiet sharp-eyed man, in tan silk shirt, checked vest
hanging open, and burning brown trousers—Mr. Healey Hanson.
Mr. Hanson said only "Yuh?'' but his implacable and
contemptuous eyes queried Babbitt's soul, and he seemed not at
all impressed by the new dark-gray suit for which (as he had
admitted to every acquaintance at the Athletic Club) Babbitt
had paid a hundred and twenty-five dollars.
"Glad meet you, Mr. Hanson. Say, uh— I'm George Babbitt
of the Babbitt-Thompson Realty Company. I'm a great
friend of Jake Offutt's.''
"Well, what of it?''
"Say, uh, I'm going to have a party, and Jake told me you'd
be able to fix me up with a little gin.'' In alarm, in obsequiousness,
as Hanson's eyes grew more bored, "You telephone
to Jake about me, if you want to.''
Hanson answered by jerking his head to indicate the entrance
to the back room, and strolled away. Babbitt melodramatically
crept into an apartment containing four round
tables, eleven chairs, a brewery calendar, and a smell. He
waited. Thrice he saw Healey Hanson saunter through, humming,
hands in pockets, ignoring him.
By this time Babbitt had modified his valiant morning vow,
"I won't pay one cent over seven dollars a quart'' to "I might
pay ten.'' On Hanson's next weary entrance he besought
"Could you fix that up?'' Hanson scowled, and grated, "Just
a minute—Pete's sake—just a min-ute!'' In growing meekness
Babbitt went on waiting till Hanson casually reappeared with
a quart of gin—what is euphemistically known as a quart—in
his disdainful long white hands.
"Twelve bucks,'' he snapped.
"Say, uh, but say, cap'n, Jake thought you'd be able to fix
me up for eight or nine a bottle.''
"Nup. Twelve. This is the real stuff, smuggled from Canada.
This is none o' your neutral spirits with a drop of
juniper extract,'' the honest merchant said virtuously. "Twelve
bones—if you want it. Course y' understand I'm just doing
this anyway as a friend of Jake's.''
"Sure! Sure! I understand!'' Babbitt gratefully held out
twelve dollars. He felt honored by contact with greatness as
Hanson yawned, stuffed the bills, uncounted, into his radiant
vest, and swaggered away.
He had a number of titillations out of concealing the gin-bottle
under his coat and out of hiding it in his desk. All
afternoon he snorted and chuckled and gurgled over his ability
to "give the Boys a real shot in the arm to-night.'' He was,
in fact, so exhilarated that he was within a block of his house
before he remembered that there was a certain matter, mentioned
by his wife, of fetching ice cream from Vecchia's. He
explained, "Well, darn it—'' and drove back.
Vecchia was not a caterer, he was The Caterer of Zenith.
Most coming-out parties were held in the white and gold ballroom
of the Maison Vecchia; at all nice teas the guests recognized
the five kinds of Vecchia sandwiches and the seven kinds
of Vecchia cakes; and all really smart dinners ended, as on
a resolving chord, in Vecchia Neapolitan ice cream in one of
the three reliable molds—the melon mold, the round mold like
a layer cake, and the long brick.
Vecchia's shop had pale blue woodwork, tracery of plaster
roses, attendants in frilled aprons, and glass shelves of "kisses''
with all the refinement that inheres in whites of eggs. Babbitt
felt heavy and thick amid this professional daintiness, and as
he waited for the ice cream he decided, with hot prickles at
the back of his neck, that a girl customer was giggling at him.
He went home in a touchy temper. The first thing he heard
was his wife's agitated:
"George! Did you remember to go to
Vecchia's and get the
ice cream?''
"Say! Look here! Do I ever forget to do things?''
"Yes! Often!''
"Well now, it's darn seldom I do, and it certainly makes me
tired, after going into a pink-tea joint like Vecchia's and having
to stand around looking at a lot of half-naked young girls,
all rouged up like they were sixty and eating a lot of stuff that
simply ruins their stomachs—''
"Oh, it's too bad about you! I've noticed how you hate to
look at pretty girls!''
With a jar Babbitt realized that his wife was too busy to
be impressed by that moral indignation with which males rule
the world, and he went humbly up-stairs to dress. He had
an impression of a glorified dining-room, of cut-glass, candles,
polished wood, lace, silver, roses. With the awed swelling of
the heart suitable to so grave a business as giving a dinner, he
slew the temptation to wear his plaited dress-shirt for a fourth
time, took out an entirely fresh one, tightened his black bow,
and rubbed his patent-leather pumps with a handkerchief.
He glanced with pleasure at his garnet and silver studs. He
smoothed and patted his ankles, transformed by silk socks
from the sturdy shanks of George Babbitt to the elegant limbs
of what is called a Clubman. He stood before the pier-glass,
viewing his trim dinner-coat, his beautiful triple-braided trousers;
and murmured in lyric beatitude, "By golly, I don't look
so bad. I certainly don't look like Catawba. If the hicks back
home could see me in this rig, they'd have a fit!''
He moved majestically down to mix the cocktails. As he
chipped ice, as he squeezed oranges, as he collected vast stores
of bottles, glasses, and spoons at the sink in the pantry, he
felt as authoritative as the bartender at Healey Hanson's saloon.
True, Mrs. Babbitt said he was under foot, and Matilda
and the maid hired for the evening brushed by him,
elbowed him, shrieked "Pleasopn door,'' as they tottered
through with trays, but in this high moment he ignored them.
Besides the new bottle of gin, his cellar consisted of one
half-bottle of Bourbon whisky, a quarter of a bottle of Italian
vermouth, and approximately one hundred drops of orange
bitters. He did not possess a cocktail-shaker. A shaker was
proof of dissipation, the symbol of a Drinker, and Babbitt
disliked being known as a Drinker even more than he liked a
Drink. He mixed by pouring from an ancient gravy-boat into
a handleless pitcher; he poured with a noble dignity, holding
his alembics high beneath the powerful Mazda globe, his face
hot, his shirt-front a glaring white, the copper sink a scoured
red-gold.
He tasted the sacred essence. "Now, by golly, if that isn't
pretty near one fine old cocktail! Kind of a Bronx, and yet
like a Manhattan. Ummmmmm! Hey, Myra, want a little
nip before the folks come?''
Bustling into the dining-room, moving each glass a quarter
of an inch, rushing back with resolution implacable on her face
her gray and silver-lace party frock protected by a denim
towel, Mrs. Babbitt glared at him, and rebuked him, "Certainly
not!''
"Well,'' in a loose, jocose manner, "I think the old man
will!''
The cocktail filled him with a whirling exhilaration behind
which he was aware of devastating desires—to rush places in
fast motors, to kiss girls, to sing, to be witty. He sought to
regain his lost dignity by announcing to Matilda:
"I'm going to stick this pitcher of cocktails in the refrigerator.
Be sure you don't upset any of 'em.''
"Yeh.''
"Well, be sure now. Don't go putting anything on this
top shelf.''
"Yeh.''
"Well, be—'' He was dizzy. His voice was thin and distant.
"Whee!'' With enormous impressiveness he commanded,
"Well, be sure now,'' and minced into the safety of the living-room.
He wondered whether he could persuade "as slow a
bunch as Myra and the Littlefields to go some place aft' dinner
and raise Cain and maybe dig up smore booze.'' He perceived
that he had gifts of profligacy which had been neglected.
By the time the guests had come, including the inevitable
late couple for whom the others waited with painful amiability,
a great gray emptiness had replaced the purple swirling in Babbitt's
head, and he had to force the tumultuous greetings suitable
to a host on Floral Heights.
The guests were Howard Littlefield, the doctor of philosophy
who furnished publicity and comforting economics to the Street
Traction Company; Vergil Gunch, the coal-dealer, equally powerful
in the Elks and in the Boosters' Club; Eddie Swanson
the agent for the Javelin Motor Car, who lived across the
street; and Orville Jones, owner of the Lily White Laundry,
which justly announced itself "the biggest, busiest, bulliest
cleanerie shoppe in Zenith.'' But, naturally, the most distinguished
of all was T. Cholmondeley Frink, who was not only
the author of "Poemulations,'' which, syndicated daily in
sixty-seven leading newspapers, gave him one of the largest
audiences of any poet in the world, but also an optimistic
lecturer and the creator of "Ads that Add.'' Despite the searching
philosophy and high morality of his verses, they were
humorous and easily understood by any child of twelve; and
it added a neat air of pleasantry to them that they were set
not as verse but as prose. Mr. Frink was known from Coast
to Coast as "Chum.''
With them were six wives, more or less—it was hard to tell,
so early in the evening, as at first glance they all looked alike,
and as they all said, "Oh, isn't this nice!'' in
the same tone of
determined liveliness. To the eye, the men were less similar:
Littlefield, a hedge-scholar, tall and horse-faced; Chum Frink,
a trifle of a man with soft and mouse-like hair, advertising his
profession as poet by a silk cord on his eye-glasses; Vergil
Gunch, broad, with coarse black hair en brosse; Eddie Swanson,
a bald and bouncing young man who showed his taste for
elegance by an evening waistcoat of figured black silk with
glass buttons; Orville Jones, a steady-looking, stubby, not
very memorable person, with a hemp-colored toothbrush mustache.
Yet they were all so well fed and clean, they all
shouted " 'Evenin', Georgie!'' with such robustness, that they
seemed to be cousins, and the strange thing is that the longer
one knew the women, the less alike they seemed; while the
longer one knew the men, the more alike their bold patterns
appeared.
The drinking of the cocktails was as canonical a rite as the
mixing. The company waited, uneasily, hopefully, agreeing in
a strained manner that the weather had been rather warm and
slightly cold, but still Babbitt said nothing about drinks. They
became despondent. But when the late couple (the Swansons)
had arrived, Babbitt hinted, "Well, folks, do you think you
could stand breaking the law a little?''
They looked at Chum Frink, the recognized lord of language.
Frink pulled at his eye-glass cord as at a bell-rope,
he cleared his throat and said that which was the custom:
"I'll tell you, George: I'm a law-abiding man, but they do
say Verg Gunch is a regular yegg, and of course he's bigger 'n
I am, and I just can't figure out what I'd do if he tried to
force me into anything criminal!''
Gunch was roaring, "Well, I'll take a chance—'' when Frink
held up his hand and went on, "So if Verg and you insist,
Georgie, I'll park my car on the wrong side of the street, because
I take it for granted that's the crime you're hinting at!''
There was a great deal of laughter. Mrs. Jones asserted,
"Mr. Frink is simply too killing! You'd think he was so innocent!''
Babbitt clamored, "How did you guess it, Chum? Well,
you-all just wait a moment while I go out and get the—keys
to your cars!'' Through a froth of merriment he brought the
shining promise, the mighty tray of glasses with the cloudy
yellow cocktails in the glass pitcher in the center. The men
babbled, "Oh, gosh, have a look!'' and "This gets me right
where I live!'' and "Let me at it!'' But Chum Frink, a traveled
man and not unused to woes, was stricken by the thought
that the potion might be merely fruit-juice with a little neutral
spirits. He looked timorous as Babbitt, a moist and ecstatic
almoner, held out a glass, but as he tasted it he piped, "Oh,
man, let me dream on! It ain't true, but don't waken me!
Jus' lemme slumber!''
Two hours before, Frink had completed a newspaper lyric
beginning:
I sat alone and groused and thunk, and scratched my head
and sighed and wunk, and groaned, "There still are boobs,
alack, who'd like the old-time gin-mill back; that den that
makes a sage a loon, the vile and smelly old saloon!'' I'll
never miss their poison booze, whilst I the bubbling spring
can use, that leaves my head at merry morn as clear as any
babe new-born!
Babbitt drank with the others; his moment's depression was
gone; he perceived that these were the best fellows in the
world; he wanted to give them a thousand cocktails. "Think
you could stand another?'' he cried. The wives refused, with
giggles, but the men, speaking in a wide, elaborate, enjoyable
manner, gloated, "Well, sooner than have you get sore at me,
Georgie—''
"You got a little dividend coming,'' said Babbitt to each
of them, and each intoned, "Squeeze it, Georgie, squeeze it!''
When, beyond hope, the pitcher was empty, they stood and
talked about prohibition. The men leaned back on their heels,
put their hands in their trousers-pockets, and proclaimed their
views with the booming profundity of a prosperous male repeating
a thoroughly hackneyed statement about a matter of which
he knows nothing whatever.
"Now, I'll tell you,'' said Vergil Gunch; "way I figure it is
this, and I can speak by the book, because I've talked to a
lot of doctors and fellows that ought to know, and the way I
see it is that it's a good thing to get rid of the saloon, but
they ought to let a fellow have beer and light wines.''
Howard Littlefield observed, "What isn't generally realized
is that it's a dangerous prop'sition to invade the rights of personal
liberty. Now, take this for instance: The King of—Bavaria?
I think it was Bavaria—yes, Bavaria, it was—in
1862, March, 1862, he issued a proclamation against public
grazing of live-stock. The peasantry had stood for overtaxation
without the slightest complaint, but when this proclamation
came out, they rebelled. Or it may have been Saxony. But
it just goes to show the dangers of invading the rights of personal
liberty.''
"That's it—no one got a right to invade personal liberty,''
said Orville Jones.
"Just the same, you don't want to forget prohibition is a
mighty good thing for the working-classes. Keeps 'em from
wasting their money and lowering their productiveness,'' said
Vergil Gunch.
"Yes, that's so. But the trouble is the manner of enforcement,''
insisted Howard Littlefield. "Congress didn't understand
the right system. Now, if I'd been running the thing,
I'd have arranged it so that the drinker himself was licensed,
and then we could have taken care of the shiftless workman—
kept him from drinking—and yet not 've interfered with the
rights—with the personal liberty—of fellows like ourselves.''
They bobbed their heads, looked admiringly at one another,
and stated, "That's so, that would be the stunt.''
"The thing that worries me is that a lot of these guys will
take to cocaine,'' sighed Eddie Swanson.
They bobbed more violently, and groaned, "That's so, there
is a danger of that.''
Chum Frink chanted, "Oh, say, I got hold of a swell new
receipt for home-made beer the other day. You take—''
Gunch interrupted, "Wait! Let me tell you mine!'' Littlefield
snorted, "Beer! Rats! Thing to do is to ferment cider!''
Jones insisted, "I've got the receipt that does the business!''
Swanson begged, "Oh, say, lemme tell you the story—'' But
Frink went on resolutely, "You take and save the shells from
peas, and pour six gallons of water on a bushel of shells and
boil the mixture till—''
Mrs. Babbitt turned toward them with yearning sweetness;
Frink hastened to finish even his best beer-recipe; and she
said gaily, "Dinner is served.''
There was a good deal of friendly argument among the men
as to which should go in last, and while they were crossing the
hall from the living-room to the dining-room Vergil Gunch
made them laugh by thundering, "If I can't sit next to Myra
Babbitt and hold her hand under the table, I won't play—I'm
goin' home.'' In the dining-room they stood embarrassed while
Mrs. Babbitt fluttered, "Now, let me see— Oh, I was going
to have some nice hand-painted place-cards for you but— Oh,
let me see; Mr. Frink, you sit there.''
The dinner was in the best style of women's-magazine art,
whereby the salad was served in hollowed apples, and everything
but the invincible fried chicken resembled something
else.
Ordinarily the men found it hard to talk to the women;
flirtation was an art unknown on Floral Heights, and the
realms of offices and of kitchens had no alliances. But under
the inspiration of the cocktails, conversation was violent. Each
of the men still had a number of important things to say about
prohibition, and now that each had a loyal listener in his
dinner-partner he burst out:
"I found a place where I can get all the hootch I want at
eight a quart—''
"Did you read about this fellow that went and paid a thousand
dollars for ten cases of red-eye that proved to be nothing
but water? Seems this fellow was standing on the corner
and fellow comes up to him—''
"They say there's a whole raft of stuff being smuggled across
at Detroit—''
"What I always say is—what a lot of folks don't realize
about prohibition—''
"And then you get all this awful poison stuff—wood alcohol
and everything—''
"Course I believe in it on principle, but I don't propose
to have anybody telling me what I got to think and do. No
American 'll ever stand for that!''
But they all felt that it was rather in bad taste for Orville
Jones—and he not recognized as one of the wits of the occasion
anyway—to say, "In fact, the whole thing about prohibition is
this: it isn't the initial cost, it's the humidity.''
Not till the one required topic had been dealt with did the
conversation become general.
It was often and admiringly said of Vergil Gunch, "Gee, that
fellow can get away with murder! Why, he can pull a Raw
One in mixed company and all the ladies 'll laugh their heads
off, but me, gosh, if I crack anything that's just the least bit
off color I get the razz for fair!'' Now Gunch delighted them
by crying to Mrs. Eddie Swanson, youngest of the women,
"Louetta! I managed to pinch Eddie's doorkey out of his
pocket, and what say you and me sneak across the street when
the folks aren't looking? Got something,'' with a gorgeous
leer, "awful important to tell you!''
The women wriggled, and Babbitt was stirred to like naughtiness.
"Say, folks, I wished I dared show you a book I borrowed
from Doc Patten!''
"Now, George! The idea!'' Mrs. Babbitt warned him.
"This book—racy isn't the word! It's some kind of an
anthropological report about—about Customs, in the South
Seas, and what it doesn't say! It's a book you
can't buy.
Verg, I'll lend it to you.''
"Me first!'' insisted Eddie Swanson. "Sounds spicy!''
Orville Jones announced, "Say, I heard a Good One the
other day about a coupla Swedes and their wives,'' and, in the
best Jewish accent, he resolutely carried the Good One to a
slightly disinfected ending. Gunch capped it. But the cocktails
waned, the seekers dropped back into cautious reality.
Chum Frink had recently been on a lecture-tour among the
small towns, and he chuckled, "Awful good to get back to
civilization! I certainly been seeing some hick towns! I mean—
Course the folks there are the best on earth, but, gee whiz,
those Main Street burgs are slow, and you fellows can't hardly
appreciate what it means to be here with a bunch of live ones!''
"You bet!'' exulted Orville Jones. "They're the best folks
on earth, those small-town folks, but, oh, mama! what conversation!
Why, say, they can't talk about anything but the
weather and the ne-oo Ford, by heckalorum!''
"That's right. They all talk about just the same things,''
said Eddie Swanson.
"Don't they, though! They just say the same things over
and over,'' said Vergil Gunch.
"Yes, it's really remarkable. They seem to lack all power
of looking at things impersonally. They simply go over and
over the same talk about Fords and the weather and so on.''
said Howard Littlefield.
"Still, at that, you can't blame 'em. They haven't got any
intellectual stimulus such as you get up here in the city,''
said Chum Frink.
"Gosh, that's right,'' said Babbitt. "I don't want you highbrows
to get stuck on yourselves but I must say it keeps a
fellow right up on his toes to sit in with a poet and with Howard,
the guy that put the con in economics! But these small-town
boobs, with nobody but each other to talk to, no wonder
they get so sloppy and uncultured in their speech, and so
balled-up in their thinking!''
Orville Jones commented, "And, then take our other advantages—
the movies, frinstance. These Yapville sports think
they're all-get-out if they have one change of bill a week,
where here in the city you got your choice of a dozen diff'rent
movies any evening you want to name!''
"Sure, and the inspiration we get from rubbing up against
high-class hustlers every day and getting jam full of ginger,''
said Eddie Swanson.
"Same time,'' said Babbitt, "no sense excusing these rube
burgs too easy. Fellow's own fault if he doesn't show the
initiative to up and beat it to the city, like we done—did. And,
just speaking in confidence among friends, they're jealous as
the devil of a city man. Every time I go up to Catawba I
have to go around apologizing to the fellows I was brought up
with because I've more or less succeeded and they haven't.
And if you talk natural to 'em, way we do here, and show
finesse and what you might call a broad point of view, why,
they think you're putting on side. There's my own half-brother
Martin—runs the little ole general store my Dad used
to keep. Say, I'll bet he don't know there is such a thing as
a Tux—as a dinner-jacket. If he was to come in here now,
he'd think we were a bunch of—of— Why, gosh, I swear, he
wouldn't know what to think! Yes, sir, they're jealous!''
Chum Frink agreed, "That's so. But what I mind is their
lack of culture and appreciation of the Beautiful—if you'll
excuse me for being highbrow. Now, I like to give a high-class
lecture, and read some of my best poetry—not the newspaper
stuff but the magazine things. But say, when I get out in
the tall grass, there's nothing will take but a lot of cheesy
old stories and slang and junk that if any of us were to indulge
in it here, he'd get the gate so fast it would make his head
swim.''
Vergil Gunch summed it up: "Fact is, we're mighty lucky
to be living among a bunch of city-folks, that recognize artistic
things and business-punch equally. We'd feel pretty glum if
we got stuck in some Main Street burg and tried to wise up
the old codgers to the kind of life we're used to here. But,
by golly, there's this you got to say for 'em: Every small
American town is trying to get population and modern ideals.
And darn if a lot of 'em don't put it across! Somebody
starts panning a rube crossroads, telling how he was there in
1900 and it consisted of one muddy street, count 'em, one,
and nine hundred human clams. Well, you go back there in
1920, and you find pavements and a swell little hotel and a
first-class ladies' ready-to-wear shop-real perfection, in fact!
You don't want to just look at what these small towns are,
you want to look at what they're aiming to become, and they
all got an ambition that in the long run is going to make 'em
the finest spots on earth—they all want to be just like Zenith!''
III
However intimate they might be with T. Cholmondeley
Frink as a neighbor, as a borrower of lawn-mowers and monkey-wrenches,
they knew that he was also a Famous Poet
and a distinguished advertising-agent; that behind his easiness
were sultry literary mysteries which they could not penetrate.
But to-night, in the gin-evolved confidence, he admitted them
to the arcanum:
"I've got a literary problem that's worrying me to death.
I'm doing a series of ads for the Zeeco Car and I want to
make each of 'em a real little gem—reg'lar stylistic stuff. I'm
all for this theory that perfection is the stunt, or nothing at
all, and these are as tough things as I ever tackled. You
might think it'd be harder to do my poems—all these Heart
Topics: home and fireside and happiness—but they're cinches.
You can't go wrong on 'em; you know what sentiments any
decent go-ahead fellow must have if he plays the game, and
you stick right to 'em. But the poetry of industrialism, now
there's a literary line where you got to open up new territory.
Do you know the fellow who's really
the American
genius?
The fellow who you don't know his name and I don't either,
but his work ought to be preserved so's future generations can
judge our American thought and originality to-day? Why,
the fellow that writes the Prince Albert Tobacco ads! Just
listen to this:
It's P.A. that jams such joy in jimmy pipes. Say—bet
you've often bent-an-ear to that spill-of-speech about
hopping from five to f-i-f-t-y p-e-r by "stepping on her
a bit!'' Guess that's going some, all right—BUT—
just among ourselves, you better start a rapidwhiz system
to keep tabs as to how fast you'll buzz from low
smoke spirits to tip-top-high—once you line up
behind
a jimmy pipe that's all aglow with that peach-of-a-pal, Prince Albert.
Prince Albert is john-on-the-job—always joy'usly
more-ish in flavor; always delightfully cool and
fragrant!
For a fact, you never hooked such double-decked,
copper-riveted. two-fisted smoke enjoyment!
Go to a pipe—speed-o-quick like you light on a good
thing! Why—packed with Prince Albert you can play
a joy'us jimmy straight across the boards! And you
know what that means!''
"Now that,'' caroled the motor agent, Eddie Swanson, "that's
what I call he-literature! That Prince Albert fellow—though,
gosh, there can't be just one fellow that writes 'em; must be
a big board of classy ink-slingers in conference, but anyway:
now, him, he doesn't write for long-haired pikers, he writes
for Regular Guys, he writes for
me, and I tip my
benny to
him! The only thing is: I wonder if it sells the goods?
Course, like all these poets, this Prince Albert fellow lets his
idea run away with him. It makes elegant reading, but it
don't say nothing. I'd never go out and buy Prince Albert
Tobacco after reading it, because it doesn't tell me anything
about the stuff. It's just a bunch of fluff.''
Frink faced him: "Oh, you're crazy! Have I got to sell
you the idea of Style? Anyway that's the kind of stuff I'd
like to do for the Zeeco. But I simply can't. So I decided
to stick to the straight poetic, and I took a shot at a highbrow
ad for the Zeeco. How do you like this:
The long white trail is calling—calling-and it's over
the hills and far away for every man or woman that
has red blood in his veins and on his lips the ancient
song of the buccaneers. It's away with dull drudging,
and a fig for care. Speed—glorious Speed—it's more
than just a moment's exhilaration—it's Life for you
and me! This great new truth the makers of the Zeeco
Car have considered as much as price and style. It's
fleet as the antelope, smooth as the glide of a swallow,
yet powerful as the charge of a bull-elephant. Class
breathes in every line. Listen, brother! You'll never
know what the high art of hiking is till you TRY
LIFE'S ZIPPINGEST ZEST—THE ZEECO!
"Yes,'' Frink mused, "that's got an elegant color to it, if I
do say so, but it ain't got the originality of `spill-of-speech!' ''
The whole company sighed with sympathy and admiration.