32. CHAPTER XXXII
I
HIS wife was up when he came in. "Did you have a good
time?'' she sniffed.
"I did not. I had a rotten time! Anything else I got to
explain?''
"George, how can you speak like— Oh, I don't know what's
come over you!''
"Good Lord, there's nothing come over me! Why do you
look for trouble all the time?'' He was warning himself,
"Careful! Stop being so disagreeable. Course she feels it,
being left alone here all evening.'' But he forgot his warning
as she went on:
"Why do you go out and see all sorts of strange people? I
suppose you'll say you've been to another committee-meeting
this evening!''
"Nope. I've been calling on a woman. We sat by the fire
and kidded each other and had a whale of a good time, if you
want to know!''
"Well— From the way you say it, I suppose it's my fault
you went there! I probably sent you!''
"You did!''
"Well, upon my word—''
"You hate `strange people' as you call 'em. If you had your
way, I'd be as much of an old stick-in-the-mud as Howard
Littlefield. You never want to have anybody with any git
to 'em at the house; you want a bunch of old stiffs that sit
around and gas about the weather. You're doing your level
best to make me old. Well, let me tell you, I'm not going
to have—''
Overwhelmed she bent to his unprecedented tirade, and in
answer she mourned:
"Oh, dearest, I don't think that's true. I don't mean to
make you old, I know. Perhaps you're partly right. Perhaps
I am slow about getting acquainted with new people. But
when you think of all the dear good times we have, and the
supper-parties and the movies and all—''
With true masculine wiles he not only convinced himself
that she had injured him but, by the loudness of his voice and
the brutality of his attack, he convinced her also, and presently
he had her apologizing for his having spent the evening
with Tanis. He went up to bed well pleased, not only the
master but the martyr of the household. For a distasteful
moment after he had lain down he wondered if he had been
altogether just. "Ought to be ashamed, bullying her. Maybe
there is her side to things. Maybe she hasn't had such a
bloomin' hectic time herself. But I don't care! Good for her
to get waked up a little. And I'm going to keep free. Of
her and Tanis and the fellows at the club and everybody. I'm
going to run my own life!''
II
In this mood he was particularly objectionable at the Boosters'
Club lunch next day. They were addressed by a congressman
who had just returned from an exhaustive three-months
study of the finances, ethnology, political systems, linguistic
divisions, mineral resources, and agriculture of Germany,
France, Great Britain, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia,
and Bulgaria. He told them all about those subjects,
together with three funny stories about European misconceptions
of America and some spirited words on the necessity of
keeping ignorant foreigners out of America.
"Say, that was a mighty informative talk. Real he-stuff,''
said Sidney Finkelstein.
But the disaffected Babbitt grumbled, "Four-flusher! Bunch
of hot air! And what's the matter with the immigrants? Gosh,
they aren't all ignorant, and I got a hunch we're all descended
from immigrants ourselves.''
"Oh, you make me tired!'' said Mr. Finkelstein.
Babbitt was aware that Dr. A. I. Dilling was sternly listening
from across the table. Dr. Dilling was one of the most
important men in the Boosters'. He was not a physician but
a surgeon, a more romantic and sounding occupation. He was
an intense large man with a boiling of black hair and a thick
black mustache. The newspapers often chronicled his operations;
he was professor of surgery in the State University; he
went to dinner at the very best houses on Royal Ridge; and
he was said to be worth several hundred thousand dollars.
It was dismaying to Babbitt to have such a person glower at
him. He hastily praised the congressman's wit, to Sidney
Finkelstein, but for Dr. Dilling's benefit.
III
That afternoon three men shouldered into Babbitt's office
with the air of a Vigilante committee in frontier days. They
were large, resolute, big-jawed men, and they were all high
lords in the land of Zenith—Dr. Dilling the surgeon, Charles
McKelvey the contractor, and, most dismaying of all, the
white-bearded Colonel Rutherford Snow, owner of the Advocate-Times.
In their whelming presence Babbitt felt small and
insignificant.
"Well, well, great pleasure, have chairs, what c'n I do for
you?'' he babbled.
They neither sat nor offered observations on the weather.
"Babbitt,'' said Colonel Snow, "we've come from the Good
Citizens' League. We've decided we want you to join. Vergil
Gunch says you don't care to, but I think we can show you a
new light. The League is going to combine with the Chamber
of Commerce in a campaign for the Open Shop, so it's time
for you to put your name down.''
In his embarrassment Babbitt could not recall his reasons
for not wishing to join the League, if indeed he had ever definitely
known them, but he was passionately certain that he
did not wish to join, and at the thought of their forcing him
he felt a stirring of anger against even these princes of commerce.
"Sorry, Colonel, have to think it over a little,'' he mumbled.
McKelvey snarled, "That means you're not going to join,
George?''
Something black and unfamiliar and ferocious spoke from
Babbitt: "Now, you look here, Charley! I'm damned if I'm
going to be bullied into joining anything, not even by you
plutes!''
"We're not bullying anybody,'' Dr. Dilling began, but Colonel
Snow thrust him aside with, "Certainly we are! We don't
mind a little bullying, if it's necessary. Babbitt, the G.C.L.
has been talking about you a good deal. You're supposed to be
a sensible, clean, responsible man; you always have been; but
here lately, for God knows what reason, I hear from all sorts
of sources that you're running around with a loose crowd, and
what's a whole lot worse, you've actually been advocating and
supporting some of the most dangerous elements in town, like
this fellow Doane.''
"Colonel, that strikes me as my private business.''
"Possibly, but we want to have an understanding. You've
stood in, you and your father-in-law, with some of the most
substantial and forward-looking interests in town, like my
friends of the Street Traction Company, and my papers have
given you a lot of boosts. Well, you can't expect the decent
citizens to go on aiding you if you intend to side with precisely
the people who are trying to undermine us.''
Babbitt was frightened, but he had an agonized instinct
that if he yielded in this he would yield in everything. He
protested:
"You're exaggerating, Colonel. I believe in being broad-minded
and liberal, but, of course, I'm just as much agin the
cranks and blatherskites and labor unions and so on as you
are. But fact is, I belong to so many organizations now that
I can't do 'em justice, and I want to think it over before I
decide about coming into the G.C.L.''
Colonel Snow condescended, "Oh, no, I'm not exaggerating!
Why the doctor here heard you cussing out and defaming one
of the finest types of Republican congressmen, just this noon!
And you have entirely the wrong idea about `thinking over
joining.' We're not begging you to join the G.C.L.—we're
permitting you to join. I'm not sure, my boy, but what if
you put it off it'll be too late. I'm not sure we'll want you
then. Better think quick—better think quick!''
The three Vigilantes, formidable in their righteousness,
stared at him in a taut silence. Babbitt waited through. He
thought nothing at all, he merely waited, while in his echoing
head buzzed, "I don't want to join—I don't want to join—I
don't want to.''
"All right. Sorry for you!'' said Colonel Snow, and the
three men abruptly turned their beefy backs.
IV
As Babbitt went out to his car that evening he saw Vergil
Gunch coming down the block. He raised his hand in salutation,
but Gunch ignored it and crossed the street. He was
certain that Gunch had seen him. He drove home in sharp discomfort.
His wife attacked at once: "Georgie dear, Muriel Frink
was in this afternoon, and she says that Chum says the
committee of this Good Citizens' League especially asked you to
join and you wouldn't. Don't you think it would be better?
You know all the nicest people belong, and the League stands
for—''
"I know what the League stands for! It stands for the
suppression of free speech and free thought and everything
else! I don't propose to be bullied and rushed into joining anything,
and it isn't a question of whether it's a good league or
a bad league or what the hell kind of a league it is; it's just
a question of my refusing to be told I got to—''
"But dear, if you don't join, people might criticize you.''
"Let 'em criticize!''
"But I mean nice people!''
"Rats, I— Matter of fact, this whole League is just a
fad. It's like all these other organizations that start off with
such a rush and let on they're going to change the whole works,
and pretty soon they peter out and everybody forgets all
about 'em!''
"But if it's the fad now, don't you think
you—''
"No, I don't! Oh, Myra, please quit nagging me about it.
I'm sick of hearing about the confounded G.C.L. I almost
wish I'd joined it when Verg first came around, and got it over.
And maybe I'd 've come in to-day if the committee hadn't tried
to bullyrag me, but, by God, as long as I'm a free-born independent
American cit—''
"Now, George, you're talking exactly like the German furnace-man.''
"Oh, I am, am I! Then, I won't talk at all!''
He longed, that evening, to see Tanis Judique, to be strengthened
by her sympathy. When all the family were up-stairs he
got as far as telephoning to her apartment-house, but he was
agitated about it and when the janitor answered he blurted,
"Nev' mind—I'll call later,'' and hung up the receiver.
V
If Babbitt had not been certain about Vergil Gunch's avoiding
him, there could be little doubt about William Washington
Eathorne, next morning. When Babbitt was driving down to
the office he overtook Eathorne's car, with the great banker sitting
in anemic solemnity behind his chauffeur. Babbitt waved
and cried, "Mornin'!'' Eathorne looked at him deliberately,
hesitated, and gave him a nod more contemptuous than a
direct cut.
Babbitt's partner and father-in-law came in at ten:
"George, what's this I hear about some song and dance you
gave Colonel Snow about not wanting to join the G.C.L.?
What the dickens you trying to do? Wreck the firm? You
don't suppose these Big Guns will stand your bucking them
and springing all this `liberal' poppycock you been getting off
lately, do you?''
"Oh, rats, Henry T., you been reading bum fiction. There
ain't any such a thing as these plots to keep folks from being
liberal. This is a free country. A man can do anything he
wants to.''
"Course th' ain't any plots. Who said they was? Only if
folks get an idea you're scatter-brained and unstable, you don't
suppose they'll want to do business with you, do you? One
little rumor about your being a crank would do more to ruin
this business than all the plots and stuff that these fool story-writers
could think up in a month of Sundays.''
That afternoon, when the old reliable Conrad Lyte, the
merry miser, Conrad Lyte, appeared, and Babbitt suggested
his buying a parcel of land in the new residential section of
Dorchester, Lyte said hastily, too hastily, "No, no, don't want
to go into anything new just now.''
A week later Babbitt learned, through Henry Thompson, that
the officials of the Street Traction Company were planning another
real-estate coup, and that Sanders, Torrey and Wing, not
the Babbitt-Thompson Company, were to handle it for them.
"I figure that Jake Offutt is kind of leery about the way
folks are talking about you. Of course Jake is a rock-ribbed
old die-hard, and he probably advised the Traction fellows
to get some other broker. George, you got to do something!''
trembled Thompson.
And, in a rush, Babbitt agreed. All nonsense the way people
misjudged him, but still— He determined to join the Good
Citizens' League the next time he was asked, and in furious
resignation he waited. He wasn't asked. They ignored him.
He did not have the courage to go to the League and beg in,
and he took refuge in a shaky boast that he had "gotten away
with bucking the whole city. Nobody could dictate to him
how he was going to think and act!''
He was jarred as by nothing else when the paragon of stenographers,
Miss McGoun, suddenly left him, though her reasons
were excellent—she needed a rest, her sister was sick, she
might not do any more work for six months. He was uncomfortable
with her successor, Miss Havstad. What Miss Havstad's
given name was, no one in the office ever knew. It
seemed improbable that she had a given name, a lover, a powder-puff,
or a digestion. She was so impersonal, this slight,
pale, industrious Swede, that it was vulgar to think of her as
going to an ordinary home to eat hash. She was a perfectly
oiled and enameled machine, and she ought, each evening, to
have been dusted off and shut in her desk beside her too-slim,
too-frail pencil points. She took dictation swiftly, her typing
was perfect, but Babbitt became jumpy when he tried to work
with her. She made him feel puffy, and at his best-beloved
daily jokes she looked gently inquiring. He longed for Miss
McGoun's return, and thought of writing to her.
Then he heard that Miss McGoun had, a week after leaving
him, gone over to his dangerous competitors, Sanders, Torrey
and Wing.
He was not merely annoyed; he was frightened. "Why did
she quit, then?'' he worried. "Did she have a hunch my business
is going on the rocks? And it was Sanders got the Street
Traction deal. Rats—sinking ship!''
Gray fear loomed always by him now. He watched Fritz
Weilinger, the young salesman, and wondered if he too would
leave. Daily he fancied slights. He noted that he was not
asked to speak at the annual Chamber of Commerce dinner.
When Orville Jones gave a large poker party and he was not
invited, he was certain that he had been snubbed. He was
afraid to go to lunch at the Athletic Club, and afraid not to
go. He believed that he was spied on; that when he left the
table they whispered about him. Everywhere he heard the
rustling whispers: in the offices of clients, in the bank when he
made a deposit, in his own office, in his own home. Interminably
he wondered what They were saying of him. All
day long in imaginary conversations he caught them marveling,
"Babbitt? Why, say, he's a regular anarchist! You
got to admire the fellow for his nerve, the way he turned liberal
and, by golly, just absolutely runs his life to suit himself, but
say, he's dangerous, that's what he is, and he's got to be shown
up.''
He was so twitchy that when he rounded a corner and
chanced on two acquaintances talking—whispering—his heart
leaped, and he stalked by like an embarrassed schoolboy.
When he saw his neighbors Howard Littlefield and Orville
Jones together, he peered at them, went indoors to escape their
spying, and was miserably certain that they had been whispering—
plotting—whispering.
Through all his fear ran defiance. He felt stubborn. Sometimes
he decided that he had been a very devil of a fellow, as
bold as Seneca Doane; sometimes he planned to call on Doane
and tell him what a revolutionist he was, and never got beyond
the planning. But just as often, when he heard the
soft whispers enveloping him he wailed, "Good Lord, what
have I done? Just played with the Bunch, and called down
Clarence Drum about being such a high-and-mighty sodger.
Never catch
me criticizing people and trying to
make them
accept
my ideas!''
He could not stand the strain. Before long he admitted
that he would like to flee back to the security of conformity,
provided there was a decent and creditable way to return. But,
stubbornly, he would not be forced back; he would not, he
swore, "eat dirt.''
Only in spirited engagements with his wife did these turbulent
fears rise to the surface. She complained that he
seemed nervous, that she couldn't understand why he did not
want to "drop in at the Littlefields' '' for the evening. He
tried, but he could not express to her the nebulous facts of
his rebellion and punishment. And, with Paul and Tanis lost,
he had no one to whom he could talk. "Good Lord, Tinka is
the only real friend I have, these days,'' he sighed, and he
clung to the child, played floor-games with her all evening.
He considered going to see Paul in prison, but, though he
had a pale curt note from him every week, he thought of Paul
as dead. It was Tanis for whom he was longing.
"I thought I was so smart and independent, cutting Tanis
out, and I need her, Lord how I need her!'' he raged. "Myra
simply can't understand. All she sees in life is getting along
by being just like other folks. But Tanis, she'd tell me I
was all right.''
Then he broke, and one evening, late, he did run to Tanis.
He had not dared to hope for it, but she was in, and alone.
Only she wasn't Tanis. She was a courteous, brow-lifting,
ice-armored woman who looked like Tanis. She said, "Yes,
George, what is it?'' in even and uninterested tones, and he
crept away, whipped.
His first comfort was from Ted and Eunice Littlefield.
They danced in one evening when Ted was home from the
university, and Ted chuckled, "What's this I hear from Euny,
dad? She says her dad says you raised Cain by boosting
old Seneca Doane. Hot dog! Give 'em fits! Stir 'em up!
This old burg is asleep!'' Eunice plumped down on Babbitt's
lap, kissed him, nestled her bobbed hair against his chin, and
crowed; "I think you're lots nicer than Howard. Why is it,''
confidentially, "that Howard is such an old grouch? The man
has a good heart, and honestly, he's awfully bright, but he
never will learn to step on the gas, after all the training I've
given him. Don't you think we could do something with him,
dearest?''
"Why, Eunice, that isn't a nice way to speak of your papa,''
Babbitt observed, in the best Floral Heights manner, but
he was happy for the first time in weeks. He pictured himself
as the veteran liberal strengthened by the loyalty of the young
generation. They went out to rifle the ice-box. Babbitt
gloated, "If your mother caught us at this, we'd certainly get
our come-uppance!'' and Eunice became maternal, scrambled
a terrifying number of eggs for them, kissed Babbitt on the
ear, and in the voice of a brooding abbess marveled, "It beats
the devil why feminists like me still go on nursing these men!''
Thus stimulated, Babbitt was reckless when he encountered
Sheldon Smeeth, educational director of the Y.M.C.A. and
choir-leader of the Chatham Road Church. With one of his
damp hands Smeeth imprisoned Babbitt's thick paw while he
chanted, "Brother Babbitt, we haven't seen you at church very
often lately. I know you're busy with a multitude of details,
but you mustn't forget your dear friends at the old church
home.''
Babbitt shook off the affectionate clasp—Sheldy liked to
hold hands for a long time—and snarled, "Well, I guess you
fellows can run the show without me. Sorry, Smeeth; got to
beat it. G'day.''
But afterward he winced, "If that white worm had the nerve
to try to drag me back to the Old Church Home, then the holy
outfit must have been doing a lot of talking about me, too.''
He heard them whispering—whispering—Dr. John Jennison
Drew, Cholmondeley Frink, even William Washington
Eathorne. The independence seeped out of him and he walked
the streets alone, afraid of men's cynical eyes and the incessant
hiss of whispering.