II
As he drove he glanced with the fondness of familiarity at
the buildings.
A stranger suddenly dropped into the business-center of
Zenith could not have told whether he was in a city of Oregon
or Georgia, Ohio or Maine, Oklahoma or Manitoba. But to
Babbitt every inch was individual and stirring. As always he
noted that the California Building across the way was three
stories lower, therefore three stories less beautiful, than his own
Reeves Building. As always when he passed the Parthenon
Shoe Shine Parlor, a one-story hut which beside the granite
and red-brick ponderousness of the old California Building
resembled a bath-house under a cliff, he commented, "Gosh,
ought to get my shoes shined this afternoon. Keep forgetting
it.'' At the Simplex Office Furniture Shop, the National Cash
Register Agency, he yearned for a dictaphone, for a typewriter
which would add and multiply, as a poet yearns for
quartos or a physician for radium.
At the Nobby Men's Wear Shop he took his left hand off
the steering-wheel to touch his scarf, and thought well of himself
as one who bought expensive ties "and could pay cash
for 'em, too, by golly;'' and at the United Cigar Store, with
its crimson and gold alertness, he reflected, "Wonder if I need
some cigars—idiot—plumb forgot—going t' cut down my fool
smoking.'' He looked at his bank, the Miners' and Drovers'
National, and considered how clever and solid he was to bank
with so marbled an establishment. His high moment came in
the clash of traffic when he was halted at the corner beneath
the lofty Second National Tower. His car was banked with
four others in a line of steel restless as cavalry, while the cross
town traffic, limousines and enormous moving-vans and insistent
motor-cycles, poured by; on the farther corner, pneumatic
riveters rang on the sun-plated skeleton of a new building; and
out of this tornado flashed the inspiration of a familiar face,
and a fellow Booster shouted, "H' are you, George!'' Babbitt
waved in neighborly affection, and slid on with the traffic as
the policeman lifted his hand. He noted how quickly his car
picked up. He felt superior and powerful, like a shuttle of
polished steel darting in a vast machine.
As always he ignored the next two blocks, decayed blocks
not yet reclaimed from the grime and shabbiness of the Zenith
of 1885. While he was passing the five-and-ten-cent store, the
Dakota Lodging House, Concordia Hall with its lodge-rooms
and the offices of fortune-tellers and chiropractors, he thought
of how much money he made, and he boasted a little and worried
a little and did old familiar sums:
"Four hundred fifty plunks this morning from the Lyte deal.
But taxes due. Let's see: I ought to pull out eight thousand
net this year, and save fifteen hundred of that—no, not if I
put up garage and— Let's see: six hundred and forty clear
last month, and twelve times six-forty makes—makes—let
see: six times twelve is seventy-two hundred and— Oh rats,
anyway, I'll make eight thousand—gee now, that's not so bad;
mighty few fellows pulling down eight thousand dollars a year
—eight thousand good hard iron dollars—bet there isn't more
than five per cent. of the people in the whole United States
that make more than Uncle George does, by golly! Right up
at the top of the heap! But— Way expenses are— Family
wasting gasoline, and always dressed like millionaires, and
sending that eighty a month to Mother— And all these
stenographers and salesmen gouging me for every cent they can
get—''
The effect of his scientific budget-planning was that he felt
at once triumphantly wealthy and perilously poor, and in the
midst of these dissertations he stopped his car, rushed into a
small news-and-miscellany shop, and bought the electric cigar-lighter
which he had coveted for a week. He dodged his conscience
by being jerky and noisy, and by shouting at the clerk,
"Guess this will prett' near pay for itself in matches, eh?''
It was a pretty thing, a nickeled cylinder with an almost
silvery socket, to be attached to the dashboard of his car. It
was not only, as the placard on the counter observed, "a dandy
little refinement, lending the last touch of class to a gentleman's
auto,'' but a priceless time-saver. By freeing him from
halting the car to light a match, it would in a month or two
easily save ten minutes.
As he drove on he glanced at it. "Pretty nice. Always
wanted one,'' he said wistfully. "The one thing a smoker
needs, too.''
Then he remembered that he had given up smoking.
"Darn it!'' he mourned. "Oh well, I suppose I'll hit a
cigar once in a while. And— Be a great convenience for
other folks. Might make just the difference in getting chummy
with some fellow that would put over a sale. And— Certainly
looks nice there. Certainly is a mighty clever little
jigger. Gives the last touch of refinement and class. I—
By golly, I guess I can afford it if I want to! Not going to
be the only member of this family that never has a single
doggone luxury!''
Thus, laden with treasure, after three and a half blocks of
romantic adventure, he drove up to the club.