4. CHAPTER IV
I
IT was a morning of artistic creation. Fifteen minutes after
the purple prose of Babbitt's form-letter, Chester Kirby Laylock,
the resident salesman at Glen Oriole, came in to report
a sale and submit an advertisement. Babbitt disapproved of
Laylock, who sang in choirs and was merry at home over
games of Hearts and Old Maid. He had a tenor voice, wavy
chestnut hair, and a mustache like a camel's-hair brush. Babbitt
considered it excusable in a family-man to growl, "Seen
this new picture of the kid—husky little devil, eh?'' but Laylock's
domestic confidences were as bubbling as a girl's.
"Say, I think I got a peach of an ad for the Glen, Mr.
Babbitt. Why don't we try something in poetry? Honest,
it'd have wonderful pulling-power. Listen:
'Mid pleasures and palaces,
Wherever you may roam,
You just provide the little bride
And we'll provide the home.
Do you get it? See—like `Home Sweet Home.' Don't you—''
"Yes, yes, yes, hell yes, of course I get it. But— Oh, I
think we'd better use something more dignified and forceful,
like `We lead, others follow,' or `Eventually, why not now?'
Course I believe in using poetry and humor and all that junk
when it turns the trick, but with a high-class restricted development
like the Glen we better stick to the more dignified
approach, see how I mean? Well, I guess that's all, this morning,
Chet.''
II
By a tragedy familiar to the world of art, the April enthusiasm
of Chet Laylock served only to stimulate the talent
of the older craftsman, George F. Babbitt. He grumbled to
Stanley Graff, "That tan-colored voice of Chet's gets on my
nerves,'' yet he was aroused and in one swoop he wrote:
DO YOU RESPECT YOUR LOVED ONES?
When the last sad rites of bereavement are over, do
you know for certain that you have done your best for
the Departed? You haven't unless they lie in the
Cemetery Beautiful
LINDEN LANE
the only strictly up-to-date burial place in or near
Zenith, where exquisitely gardened plots look from
daisy-dotted hill-slopes across the smiling fields of
Dorchester.
Sole agents
BABBITT-THOMPSON REALTY COMPANY
Reeves Building
He rejoiced, "I guess that'll show Chan Mott and his weedy
old Wildwood Cemetery something about modern merchandizing!''
III
He sent Mat Penniman to the recorder's office to dig out the
names of the owners of houses which were displaying For Rent
signs of other brokers; he talked to a man who desired to lease
a store-building for a pool-room; he ran over the list of home-leases
which were about to expire; he sent Thomas Bywaters,
a street-car conductor who played at real estate in spare time,
to call on side-street "prospects'' who were unworthy the strategies
of Stanley Graff. But he had spent his credulous excitement
of creation, and these routine details annoyed him. One
moment of heroism he had, in discovering a new way of stopping
smoking.
He stopped smoking at least once a month. He went
through with it like the solid citizen he was: admitted the evils
of tobacco, courageously made resolves, laid out plans to check
the vice, tapered off his allowance of cigars, and expounded the
pleasures of virtuousness to every one he met. He did everything,
in fact, except stop smoking.
Two months before, by ruling out a schedule, noting down
the hour and minute of each smoke, and ecstatically increasing
the intervals between smokes, he had brought himself down to
three cigars a day. Then he had lost the schedule.
A week ago he had invented a system of leaving his cigar-case
and cigarette-box in an unused drawer at the bottom of
the correspondence-file, in the outer office. "I'll just naturally
be ashamed to go poking in there all day long, making a fool
of myself before my own employees!'' he reasoned. By the
end of three days he was trained to leave his desk, walk to
the file, take out and light a cigar, without knowing that he
was doing it.
This morning it was revealed to him that it had been too
easy to open the file. Lock it, that was the thing! Inspired,
he rushed out and locked up his cigars, his cigarettes, and even
his box of safety matches; and the key to the file drawer he
hid in his desk. But the crusading passion of it made him so
tobacco-hungry that he immediately recovered the key, walked
with forbidding dignity to the file, took out a cigar and a
match—"but only one match; if ole cigar goes out, it'll by
golly have to stay out!'' Later, when the cigar did go out, he
took one more match from the file, and when a buyer and a
seller came in for a conference at eleven-thirty, naturally he
had to offer them cigars. His conscience protested, "Why,
you're smoking with them!'' but he bullied it, "Oh, shut up!
I'm busy now. Of course by-and-by—'' There was no by-and-by,
yet his belief that he had crushed the unclean habit
made him feel noble and very happy. When he called up Paul
Riesling he was, in his moral splendor, unusually eager.
He was fonder of Paul Riesling than of any one on earth
except himself and his daughter Tinka. They had been classmates,
roommates, in the State University, but always he
thought of Paul Riesling, with his dark slimness, his precisely
parted hair, his nose-glasses, his hesitant speech, his moodiness,
his love of music, as a younger brother, to be petted and protected.
Paul had gone into his father's business, after graduation;
he was now a wholesaler and small manufacturer of prepared-paper
roofing. But Babbitt strenuously believed and
lengthily announced to the world of Good Fellows that Paul
could have been a great violinist or painter or writer. "Why
say, the letters that boy sent me on his trip to the Canadian
Rockies, they just absolutely make you see the place as if you
were standing there. Believe me, he could have given any of
these bloomin' authors a whale of a run for their money!''
Yet on the telephone they said only:
"South 343. No, no, no! I said
South—South 343. Say,
operator, what the dickens is the trouble? Can't you get me
South 343? Why certainly they'll answer. Oh, Hello, 343?
Wanta speak Mist' Riesling, Mist' Babbitt talking. . . 'Lo,
Paul?''
"Yuh.''
" `S George speaking.''
"Yuh.''
"How's old socks?''
"Fair to middlin'. How 're you?''
"Fine, Paulibus. Well, what do you know?''
"Oh, nothing much.''
"Where you been keepin' yourself?''
"Oh, just stickin' round. What's up, Georgie?''
"How 'bout lil lunch 's noon?''
"Be all right with me, I guess. Club?'
"Yuh. Meet you there twelve-thirty.''
"A' right. Twelve-thirty. S' long, Georgie.''
IV
His morning was not sharply marked into divisions. Interwoven
with correspondence and advertisement-writing were a
thousand nervous details: calls from clerks who were incessantly
and hopefully seeking five furnished rooms and bath at
sixty dollars a month; advice to Mat Penniman on getting
money out of tenants who had no money.
Babbitt's virtues as a real-estate broker—as the servant of
society in the department of finding homes for families and
shops for distributors of food—were steadiness and diligence.
He was conventionally honest, he kept his records of buyers
and sellers complete, he had experience with leases and titles
and an excellent memory for prices. His shoulders were broad
enough, his voice deep enough, his relish of hearty humor strong
enough, to establish him as one of the ruling caste of Good
Fellows. Yet his eventual importance to mankind was perhaps
lessened by his large and complacent ignorance of all
architecture save the types of houses turned out by speculative
builders; all landscape gardening save the use of curving roads,
grass, and six ordinary shrubs; and all the commonest axioms
of economics. He serenely believed that the one purpose of the
real-estate business was to make money for George F. Babbitt.
True, it was a good advertisement at Boosters' Club
lunches, and all the varieties of Annual Banquets to which
Good Fellows were invited, to speak sonorously of Unselfish
Public Service, the Broker's Obligation to Keep Inviolate the
Trust of His Clients, and a thing called Ethics, whose nature
was confusing but if you had it you were a High-class Realtor
and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker, and a fly-by-night.
These virtues awakened Confidence, and enabled you
to handle Bigger Propositions. But they didn't imply that
you were to be impractical and refuse to take twice the value
of a house if a buyer was such an idiot that he didn't jew you
down on the asking-price.
Babbitt spoke well—and often—at these orgies of commercial
righteousness about the "realtor's function as a seer of
the future development of the community, and as a prophetic
engineer clearing the pathway for inevitable changes''—which
meant that a real-estate broker could make money by guessing
which way the town would grow. This guessing he called
Vision
In an address at the Boosters' Club he had admitted, "It is
at once the duty and the privilege of the realtor to know everything
about his own city and its environs. Where a surgeon
is a specialist on every vein and mysterious cell of the human
body, and the engineer upon electricity in all its phases, or
every bolt of some great bridge majestically arching o'er a
mighty flood, the realtor must know his city, inch by inch, and
all its faults and virtues.''
Though he did know the market-price, inch by inch, of
certain districts of Zenith, he did not know whether the police
force was too large or too small, or whether it was in alliance
with gambling and prostitution. He knew the means of fire-proofing
buildings and the relation of insurance-rates to fire-proofing,
but he did not know how many firemen there were in
the city, how they were trained and paid, or how complete
their apparatus. He sang eloquently the advantages of proximity
of school-buildings to rentable homes, but he did not
know—he did not know that it was worth while to know—
whether the city schoolrooms were properly heated, lighted,
ventilated, furnished; he did not know how the teachers were
chosen; and though he chanted "One of the boasts of Zenith
is that we pay our teachers adequately,'' that was because he
had read the statement in the Advocate-Times. Himself, he
could not have given the average salary of teachers in Zenith
or anywhere else.
He had heard it said that "conditions'' in the County Jail
and the Zenith City Prison were not very "scientific;'' he had,
with indignation at the criticism of Zenith, skimmed through a
report in which the notorious pessimist Seneca Doane, the radical
lawyer, asserted that to throw boys and young girls into
a bull-pen crammed with men suffering from syphilis, delirium
tremens, and insanity was not the perfect way of educating
them. He had controverted the report by growling, "Folks
that think a jail ought to be a bloomin' Hotel Thornleigh make
me sick. If people don't like a jail, let 'em behave 'emselves
and keep out of it. Besides, these reform cranks always exaggerate.''
That was the beginning and quite completely the
end of his investigations into Zenith's charities and corrections;
and as to the "vice districts'' he brightly expressed it, "Those
are things that no decent man monkeys with. Besides, smatter
fact, I'll tell you confidentially: it's a protection to our daughters
and to decent women to have a district where tough nuts
can raise cain. Keeps 'em away from our own homes.''
As to industrial conditions, however, Babbitt had thought a
great deal, and his opinions may be coordinated as follows:
"A good labor union is of value because it keeps out radical
unions, which would destroy property. No one ought to be
forced to belong to a union, however. All labor agitators who
try to force men to join a union should be hanged. In fact,
just between ourselves, there oughtn't to be any unions allowed
at all; and as it's the best way of fighting the unions, every
business man ought to belong to an employers'-association and
to the Chamber of Commerce. In union there is strength. So
any selfish hog who doesn't join the Chamber of Commerce
ought to be forced to.''
In nothing—as the expert on whose advice families moved
to new neighborhoods to live there for a generation—was Babbitt
more splendidly innocent than in the science of sanitation.
He did not know a malaria-bearing mosquito from a bat; he
knew nothing about tests of drinking water; and in the matters
of plumbing and sewage he was as unlearned as he was
voluble. He often referred to the excellence of the bathrooms
in the houses he sold. He was fond of explaining why it was
that no European ever bathed. Some one had told him, when
he was twenty-two, that all cesspools were unhealthy, and he
still denounced them. If a client impertinently wanted him to
sell a house which had a cesspool, Babbitt always spoke about
it—before accepting the house and selling it.
When he laid out the Glen Oriole acreage development, when
he ironed woodland and dipping meadow into a glenless,
orioleless, sunburnt flat prickly with small boards displaying
the names of imaginary streets, he righteously put in a complete
sewage-system. It made him feel superior; it enabled him
to sneer privily at the Martin Lumsen development, Avonlea,
which had a cesspool; and it provided a chorus for the full-page
advertisements in which he announced the beauty, convenience,
cheapness, and supererogatory healthfulness of Glen
Oriole. The only flaw was that the Glen Oriole sewers had
insufficient outlet, so that waste remained in them, not very
agreeably, while the Avonlea cesspool was a Waring septic
tank.
The whole of the Glen Oriole project was a suggestion that
Babbitt, though he really did hate men recognized as swindlers,
was not too unreasonably honest. Operators and buyers prefer
that brokers should not be in competition with them as
operators and buyers themselves, but attend to their clients'
interests only. It was supposed that the Babbitt-Thompson
Company were merely agents for Glen Oriole, serving the real
owner, Jake Offutt, but the fact was that Babbitt and Thompson
owned sixty-two per cent. of the Glen, the president and
purchasing agent of the Zenith Street Traction Company owned
twenty-eight per cent., and Jake Offutt (a gang-politician, a
small manufacturer, a tobacco-chewing old farceur who enjoyed
dirty politics, business diplomacy, and cheating at poker)
had only ten per cent., which Babbitt and the Traction officials
had given to him for "fixing'' health inspectors and fire inspectors
and a member of the State Transportation Commission.
But Babbitt was virtuous. He advocated, though he did not
practise, the prohibition of alcohol; he praised, though he did
not obey, the laws against motor-speeding; he paid his debts;
he contributed to the church, the Red Cross, and the Y. M.
C. A.; he followed the custom of his clan and cheated only
as it was sanctified by precedent; and he never descended to
trickery—though, as he explained to Paul Riesling:
"Course I don't mean to say that every ad I write is literally
true or that I always believe everything I say when I give
some buyer a good strong selling-spiel. You see—you see it's
like this: In the first place, maybe the owner of the property
exaggerated when he put it into my hands, and it certainly
isn't my place to go proving my principal a liar! And then
most folks are so darn crooked themselves that they expect a
fellow to do a little lying, so if I was fool enough to never
whoop the ante I'd get the credit for lying anyway! In self-defense
I got to toot my own horn, like a lawyer defending a
client—his bounden duty, ain't it, to bring out the poor dub's
good points? Why, the Judge himself would bawl out a lawyer
that didn't, even if they both knew the guy was guilty! But
even so, I don't pad out the truth like Cecil Rountree or
Thayer or the rest of these realtors. Fact, I think a fellow
that's willing to deliberately up and profit by lying ought to
be shot!''
Babbitt's value to his clients was rarely better shown than
this morning, in the conference at eleven-thirty between himself,
Conrad Lyte, and Archibald Purdy.
V
Conrad Lyte was a real-estate speculator. He was a nervous
speculator. Before he gambled he consulted bankers, lawyers,
architects, contracting builders, and all of their clerks and
stenographers who were willing to be cornered and give him
advice. He was a bold entrepreneur, and he desired nothing
more than complete safety in his investments, freedom from
attention to details, and the thirty or forty per cent. profit
which, according to all authorities, a pioneer deserves for his
risks and foresight. He was a stubby man with a cap-like
mass of short gray curls and clothes which, no matter how well
cut, seemed shaggy. Below his eyes were semicircular hollows,
as though silver dollars had been pressed against them and
had left an imprint.
Particularly and always Lyte consulted Babbitt, and trusted
in his slow cautiousness.
Six months ago Babbitt had learned that one Archibald
Purdy, a grocer in the indecisive residential district known as
Linton, was talking of opening a butcher shop beside his grocery.
Looking up the ownership of adjoining parcels of land,
Babbitt found that Purdy owned his present shop but did not
own the one available lot adjoining. He advised Conrad Lyte
to purchase this lot, for eleven thousand dollars, though an
appraisal on a basis of rents did not indicate its value as above
nine thousand. The rents, declared Babbitt, were too low;
and by waiting they could make Purdy come to their price.
(This was Vision.) He had to bully Lyte into buying. His
first act as agent for Lyte was to increase the rent of the battered
store-building on the lot. The tenant said a number of
rude things, but he paid.
Now, Purdy seemed ready to buy, and his delay was going
to cost him ten thousand extra dollars—the reward paid by the
community to Mr. Conrad Lyte for the virtue of employing a
broker who had Vision and who understood Talking Points,
Strategic Values, Key Situations, Underappraisals, and the
Psychology of Salesmanship.
Lyte came to the conference exultantly. He was fond of
Babbitt, this morning, and called him "old hoss.'' Purdy, the
grocer. a long-nosed man and solemn, seemed to care less for
Babbitt and for Vision, but Babbitt met him at the street door
of the office and guided him toward the private room with affectionate
little cries of "This way, Brother Purdy!'' He took
from the correspondence-file the entire box of cigars and forced
them on his guests. He pushed their chairs two inches forward
and three inches back, which gave an hospitable note,
then leaned back in his desk-chair and looked plump and jolly.
But he spoke to the weakling grocer with firmness.
"Well, Brother Purdy, we been having some pretty tempting
offers from butchers and a slew of other folks for that lot next
to your store, but I persuaded Brother Lyte that we ought to
give you a shot at the property first. I said to Lyte, `It'd
be a rotten shame,' I said, `if somebody went and opened a
combination grocery and meat market right next door and
ruined Purdy's nice little business.' Especially—'' Babbitt
leaned forward, and his voice was harsh, "—it would be hard
luck if one of these cash-and-carry chain-stores got in there
and started cutting prices below cost till they got rid of competition
and forced you to the wall!''
Purdy snatched his thin hands from his pockets, pulled up
his trousers, thrust his hands back into his pockets, tilted
in the heavy oak chair, and tried to look amused, as he
struggled:
"Yes, they're bad competition. But I guess you don't realize
the Pulling Power that Personality has in a neighborhood
business.''
The great Babbitt smiled. "That's so. Just as you feel,
old man. We thought we'd give you first chance. All right
then—''
"Now look here!'' Purdy wailed. "I know f'r a fact that
a piece of property 'bout same size, right near, sold for less 'n
eighty-five hundred, 'twa'n't two years ago, and here you fellows
are asking me twenty-four thousand dollars! Why, I'd
have to mortgage— I wouldn't mind so much paying twelve
thousand but— Why good God, Mr. Babbitt, you're asking
more 'n twice its value! And threatening to ruin me if I
don't take it!''
"Purdy, I don't like your way of talking! I don't like it
one little bit! Supposing Lyte and I were stinking enough
to want to ruin any fellow human, don't you suppose we know
it's to our own selfish interest to have everybody in Zenith
prosperous? But all this is beside the point. Tell you what
we'll do: We'll come down to twenty-three thousand-five
thousand down and the rest on mortgage—and if you want to
wreck the old shack and rebuild, I guess I can get Lyte here
to loosen up for a building-mortgage on good liberal terms.
Heavens, man, we'd be glad to oblige you! We don't like
these foreign grocery trusts any better 'n you do! But it
isn't reasonable to expect us to sacrifice eleven thousand or
more just for neighborliness, is it! How about it,
Lyte? You
willing to come down?''
By warmly taking Purdy's part, Babbitt persuaded the
benevolent Mr. Lyte to reduce his price to twenty-one thousand
dollars. At the right moment Babbitt snatched from a
drawer the agreement he had had Miss McGoun type out a
week ago and thrust it into Purdy's hands. He genially shook
his fountain pen to make certain that it was flowing, handed
it to Purdy, and approvingly watched him sign.
The work of the world was being done. Lyte had made
something over nine thousand dollars, Babbitt had made a
four-hundred-and-fifty dollar commission, Purdy had, by the sensitive
mechanism of modern finance, been provided with a business-building,
and soon the happy inhabitants of Linton would
have meat lavished upon them at prices only a little higher
than those down-town.
It had been a manly battle, but after it Babbitt drooped.
This was the only really amusing contest he had been planning.
There was nothing ahead save details of leases, appraisals,
mortgages.
He muttered, "Makes me sick to think of Lyte carrying off
most of the profit when I did all the work, the old skinflint!
And— What else have I got to do to-day? . . Like to take
a good long vacation. Motor trip. Something.''
He sprang up, rekindled by the thought of lunching with
Paul Riesling