IV
He did a voluptuous thing: he had his clothes pressed on
the train. In the morning, half an hour before they reached
Monarch, the porter came to his berth and whispered, "There's
a drawing-room vacant, sir. I put your suit in there.'' In
tan autumn overcoat over his pajamas, Babbitt slipped down
the green-curtain-lined aisle to the glory of his first private
compartment. The porter indicated that he knew Babbitt
was used to a man-servant; he held the ends of Babbitt's
trousers, that the beautifully sponged garment might not be
soiled, filled the bowl in the private washroom, and waited
with a towel.
To have a private washroom was luxurious. However enlivening
a Pullman smoking-compartment was by night, even
to Babbitt it was depressing in the morning, when it was
jammed with fat men in woolen undershirts, every hook filled
with wrinkled cottony shirts, the leather seat piled with dingy
toilet-kits, and the air nauseating with the smell of soap and
toothpaste. Babbitt did not ordinarily think much of privacy,
but now he reveled in it, reveled in his valet, and purred
with pleasure as he gave the man a tip of a dollar and a
half.
He rather hoped that he was being noticed as, in his newly
pressed clothes, with the adoring porter carrying his suit-case,
he disembarked at Monarch.
He was to share a room at the Hotel Sedgwick with W. A.
Rogers, that shrewd, rustic-looking Zenith dealer in farm-lands.
Together they had a noble breakfast, with waffles, and coffee
not in exiguous cups but in large pots. Babbitt grew expansive,
and told Rogers about the art of writing; he gave a bellboy
a quarter to fetch a morning newspaper from the lobby,
and sent to Tinka a post-card: "Papa wishes you were here
to bat round with him.''
