III
He was harassed and puzzled by it, but he found that he
was turning toward youth, as youth. The girl who especially
disturbed him—though he had never spoken to her—was the
last manicure girl on the right in the Pompeian Barber Shop.
She was small, swift, black-haired, smiling. She was nineteen,
perhaps, or twenty. She wore thin salmon-colored blouses
which exhibited her shoulders and her black-ribboned camisoles.
He went to the Pompeian for his fortnightly hair-trim. As
always, he felt disloyal at deserting his neighbor, the Reeves
Building Barber Shop. Then, for the first time, he overthrew
his sense of guilt. "Doggone it, I don't have to go here if I
don't want to! I don't own the Reeves Building! These
barbers got nothing on me! I'll doggone well get my hair cut
where I doggone well want to! Don't want to hear anything
more about it! I'm through standing by people—unless I
want to. It doesn't get you anywhere. I'm through!''
The Pompeian Barber Shop was in the basement of the Hotel
Thornleigh, largest and most dynamically modern hotel in
Zenith. Curving marble steps with a rail of polished brass
led from the hotel-lobby down to the barber shop. The interior
was of black and white and crimson tiles, with a sensational
ceiling of burnished gold, and a fountain in which a massive
nymph forever emptied a scarlet cornucopia. Forty barbers
and nine manicure girls worked desperately, and at the door
six colored porters lurked to greet the customers, to care reverently
for their hats and collars, to lead them to a place of
waiting where, on a carpet like a tropic isle in the stretch of
white stone floor, were a dozen leather chairs and a table
heaped with magazines.
Babbitt's porter was an obsequious gray-haired negro who
did him an honor highly esteemed in the land of Zenith—
greeted him by name. Yet Babbitt was unhappy. His bright
particular manicure girl was engaged. She was doing the
nails of an overdressed man and giggling with him. Babbitt
hated him. He thought of waiting, but to stop the powerful
system of the Pompeian was inconceivable, and he was instantly
wafted into a chair.
About him was luxury, rich and delicate. One votary was
having a violet-ray facial treatment, the next an oil shampoo.
Boys wheeled about miraculous electrical massage-machines.
The barbers snatched steaming towels from a machine like a
howitzer of polished nickel and disdainfully flung them away
after a second's use. On the vast marble shelf facing the
chairs were hundreds of tonics, amber and ruby and emerald.
It was flattering to Babbitt to have two personal slaves at
once—the barber and the bootblack. He would have been
completely happy if he could also have had the manicure girl.
The barber snipped at his hair and asked his opinion of the
Havre de Grace races, the baseball season, and Mayor Prout.
The young negro bootblack hummed "The Camp Meeting
Blues'' and polished in rhythm to his tune, drawing the shiny
shoe-rag so taut at each stroke that it snapped like a banjo
string. The barber was an excellent salesman. He made
Babbitt feel rich and important by his manner of inquiring,
"What is your favorite tonic, sir? Have you time to-day, sir,
for a facial massage? Your scalp is a little tight; shall I give
you a scalp massage?''
Babbitt's best thrill was in the shampoo. The barber made
his hair creamy with thick soap, then (as Babbitt bent over
the bowl, muffled in towels) drenched it with hot water which
prickled along his scalp, and at last ran the water ice-cold.
At the shock, the sudden burning cold on his skull, Babbitt's
heart thumped, his chest heaved, and his spine was an electric
wire. It was a sensation which broke the monotony of life.
He looked grandly about the shop as he sat up. The barber
obsequiously rubbed his wet hair and bound it in a towel as
in a turban, so that Babbitt resembled a plump pink calif on
an ingenious and adjustable throne. The barber begged (in
the manner of one who was a good fellow yet was overwhelmed
by the splendors of the calif), "How about a little Eldorado
Oil Rub, sir? Very beneficial to the scalp, sir. Didn't I
give you one the last time?''
He hadn't, but Babbitt agreed, "Well, all right.''
With quaking eagerness he saw that his manicure girl was
free.
"I don't know, I guess I'll have a manicure after all,'' he
droned, and excitedly watched her coming, dark-haired, smiling,
tender, little. The manicuring would have to be finished at her
table, and he would be able to talk to her without the barber
listening. He waited contentedly, not trying to peep at her,
while she filed his nails and the barber shaved him and smeared
on his burning cheeks all the interesting mixtures which the
pleasant minds of barbers have devised through the revolving
ages. When the barber was done and he sat opposite the girl
at her table, he admired the marble slab of it, admired the
sunken set bowl with its tiny silver taps, and admired himself
for being able to frequent so costly a place. When she withdrew
his wet hand from the bowl, it was so sensitive from the
warm soapy water that he was abnormally aware of the clasp
of her firm little paw. He delighted in the pinkness and glossiness
of her nails. Her hands seemed to him more adorable
than Mrs. Judique's thin fingers, and more elegant. He had
a certain ecstasy in the pain when she gnawed at the cuticle of
his nails with a sharp knife. He struggled not to look at the
outline of her young bosom and her shoulders, the more apparent
under a film of pink chiffon. He was conscious of her
as an exquisite thing, and when he tried to impress his personality
on her he spoke as awkwardly as a country boy at his
first party:
"Well, kinda hot to be working to-day.''
"Oh, yes, it is hot. You cut your own nails, last time, didn't
you!''
"Ye-es, guess I must 've.''
"You always ought to go to a manicure.''
"Yes, maybe that's so. I—''
"There's nothing looks so nice as nails that are looked after
good. I always think that's the best way to spot a real gent.
There was an auto salesman in here yesterday that claimed
you could always tell a fellow's class by the car he drove, but
I says to him, `Don't be silly,' I says; `the wisenheimers grab
a look at a fellow's nails when they want to tell if he's a tin-horn
or a real gent!'''
"Yes, maybe there's something to that. Course, that is—
with a pretty kiddy like you, a man can't help coming to get
his mitts done.''
"Yeh, I may be a kid, but I'm a wise bird, and I know nice
folks when I see um—I can read character at a glance—and
I'd never talk so frank with a fellow if I couldn't see he was
a nice fellow.''
She smiled. Her eyes seemed to him as gentle as April
pools. With great seriousness he informed himself that "there
were some roughnecks who would think that just because a girl
was a manicure girl and maybe not awful well educated, she
was no good, but as for him, he was a democrat, and understood
people,'' and he stood by the assertion that this was a
fine girl, a good girl—but not too uncomfortably good. He
inquired in a voice quick with sympathy:
"I suppose you have a lot of fellows who try to get fresh
with you.''
"Say, gee, do I! Say, listen, there's some of these cigar-store
sports that think because a girl's working in a barber shop,
they can get away with anything. The things they saaaaaay!
But, believe me, I know how to hop those birds! I just give
um the north and south and ask um, `Say, who do you think
you're talking to?' and they fade away like love's young nightmare
and oh, don't you want a box of nail-paste? It will keep
the nails as shiny as when first manicured, harmless to apply
and lasts for days.''
"Sure, I'll try some. Say— Say, it's funny; I've been
coming here ever since the shop opened and—'' With arch
surprise. "—I don't believe I know your name!''
"Don't you? My, that's funny! I don't know yours!''
"Now you quit kidding me! What's the nice little name?''
"Oh, it ain't so darn nice. I guess it's kind of kike. But
my folks ain't kikes. My papa's papa was a nobleman in
Poland, and there was a gentleman in here one day, he was
kind of a count or something—''
"Kind of a no-account, I guess you mean!''
"Who's telling this, smarty? And he said he knew my
papa's papa's folks in Poland and they had a dandy big house.
Right on a lake!'' Doubtfully, "Maybe you don't believe it?''
"Sure. No. Really. Sure I do. Why not? Don't think
I'm kidding you, honey, but every time I've noticed you I've
said to myself, `That kid has Blue Blood in her veins!' ''
"Did you, honest?''
"Honest I did. Well, well, come on—now we're friends—
what's the darling little name?''
"Ida Putiak. It ain't so much-a-much of a name. I always
say to Ma, I say, `Ma, why didn't you name me Doloress
or something with some class to it?' ''
"Well, now, I think it's a scrumptious name. Ida!''
"I bet I know your name!''
"Well, now, not necessarily. Of course— Oh, it isn't so
specially well known.''
"Aren't you Mr. Sondheim that travels for the Krackajack
Kitchen Kutlery Ko.?''
"I am not! I'm Mr. Babbitt, the real-estate broker!''
"Oh, excuse me! Oh, of course. You mean here in Zenith.''
"Yep.'' With the briskness of one whose feelings have been
hurt.
"Oh, sure. I've read your ads. They're swell.''
"Um, well— You might have read about my speeches.''
"Course I have! I don't get much time to read but— I
guess you think I'm an awfully silly little nit!''
"I think you're a little darling!''
"Well— There's one nice thing about this job. It gives
a girl a chance to meet some awfully nice gentlemen and improve
her mind with conversation, and you get so you can read
a guy's character at the first glance.''
"Look here, Ida; please don't think I'm getting fresh—''
He was hotly reflecting that it would be humiliating to be rejected
by this child, and dangerous to be accepted. If he took
her to dinner, if he were seen by censorious friends— But
he went on ardently: "Don't think I'm getting fresh if I
suggest it would be nice for us to go out and have a little
dinner together some evening.''
"I don't know as I ought to but— My gentleman-friend's
always wanting to take me out. But maybe I could to-night.''
