13. CHAPTER XIII
I
IT was by accident that Babbitt had his opportunity to
address the S. A. R. E. B.
The S. A. R. E. B., as its members called it, with the universal
passion for mysterious and important-sounding initials,
was the State Association of Real Estate Boards; the organization
of brokers and operators. It was to hold its annual
convention at Monarch, Zenith's chief rival among the cities
of the state. Babbitt was an official delegate; another was
Cecil Rountree, whom Babbitt admired for his picaresque
speculative building, and hated for his social position, for
being present at the smartest dances on Royal Ridge. Rountree
was chairman of the convention program-committee.
Babbitt had growled to him, "Makes me tired the way these
doctors and profs and preachers put on lugs about being `professional
men.' A good realtor has to have more knowledge
and finesse than any of 'em.''
"Right you are! I say: Why don't you put that into a
paper, and give it at the S. A. R. E. B.?'' suggested Rountree.
"Well, if it would help you in making up the program—
Tell you: the way I look at it is this: First place, we ought
to insist that folks call us `realtors' and not `real-estate men.'
Sounds more like a reg'lar profession. Second place— What
is it distinguishes a profession from a mere trade, business,
or occupation? What is it? Why, it's the public service
and the skill, the trained skill, and the knowledge and, uh,
all that, whereas a fellow that merely goes out for the jack,
he never considers the-public service and trained skill and
so on. Now as a professional—''
"Rather! That's perfectly bully! Perfectly corking! Now
you write it in a paper,'' said Rountree, as he rapidly and
firmly moved away.
II
However accustomed to the literary labors of advertisements
and correspondence, Babbitt was dismayed on the evening
when he sat down to prepare a paper which would take a
whole ten minutes to read.
He laid out a new fifteen-cent school exercise-book on his
wife's collapsible sewing-table, set up for the event in the
living-room. The household had been bullied into silence;
Verona and Ted requested to disappear, and Tinka threatened
with "If I hear one sound out of you—if you holler for a
glass of water one single solitary time— You better not, that's
all!'' Mrs. Babbitt sat over by the piano, making a nightgown
and gazing with respect while Babbitt wrote in the
exercise-book, to the rhythmical wiggling and squeaking of the
sewing-table.
When he rose, damp and jumpy, and his throat dusty from
cigarettes, she marveled, "I don't see how you can just sit
down and make up things right out of your own head!''
"Oh, it's the training in constructive imagination that a
fellow gets in modern business life.''
He had written seven pages, whereof the first page set forth:
The other six pages were rather like the first.
For a week he went about looking important. Every morning,
as he dressed, he thought aloud: "Jever stop to consider,
Myra, that before a town can have buildings or prosperity or
any of those things, some realtor has got to sell 'em the land?
All civilization starts with him. Jever realize that?'' At the
Athletic Club he led unwilling men aside to inquire, "Say, if
you had to read a paper before a big convention, would you
start in with the funny stories or just kind of scatter 'em all
through?'' He asked Howard Littlefield for a "set of statistics
about real-estate sales; something good and impressive,'' and
Littlefield provided something exceedingly good and impressive.
But it was to T. Cholmondeley Frink that Babbitt most
often turned. He caught Frink at the club every noon, and
demanded, while Frink looked hunted and evasive, "Say,
Chum—you're a shark on this writing stuff—how would you
put this sentence, see here in my manuscript—manuscript—
now where the deuce is that?—oh, yes, here. Would you say
`We ought not also to alone think?' or `We ought also not
to think alone?' or—''
One evening when his wife was away and he had no one
to impress, Babbitt forgot about Style, Order, and the other
mysteries, and scrawled off what he really thought about the
real-estate business and about himself, and he found the
paper written. When he read it to his wife she yearned,
"Why, dear, it's splendid; beautifully written, and so clear
and interesting, and such splendid ideas! Why, it's just—it's
just splendid!''
Next day he cornered Chum Frink and crowed, "Well, old
son, I finished it last evening! Just lammed it out! I used
to think you writing-guys must have a hard job making up
pieces, but Lord, it's a cinch. Pretty soft for you fellows;
you certainly earn your money easy! Some day when I get
ready to retire, guess I'll take to writing and show you boys
how to do it. I always used to think I could write better
stuff, and more punch and originality, than all this stuff you
see printed, and now I'm doggone sure of it!''
He had four copies of the paper typed in black with a
gorgeous red title, had them bound in pale blue manilla, and
affably presented one to old Ira Runyon, the managing editor
of the Advocate-Times, who said yes, indeed yes, he was very
glad to have it, and he certainly would read it all through—
as soon as he could find time.
Mrs. Babbitt could not go to Monarch. She had a women's-club
meeting. Babbitt said that he was very sorry.
III
Besides the five official delegates to the convention—Babbitt,
Rountree, W. A. Rogers, Alvin Thayer, and Elbert Wing—
there were fifty unofficial delegates, most of them with their
wives.
They met at the Union Station for the midnight train to
Monarch. All of them, save Cecil Rountree, who was such a
snob that he never wore badges, displayed celluloid buttons
the size of dollars and lettered "We zoom for Zenith.'' The
official delegates were magnificent with silver and magenta
ribbons. Martin Lumsen's little boy Willy carried a tasseled
banner inscribed "Zenith the Zip City—Zeal, Zest and Zowie
—1,000,000 in 1935.'' As the delegates arrived, not in taxicabs
but in the family automobile driven by the oldest son
or by Cousin Fred, they formed impromptu processions
through the station waiting-room.
It was a new and enormous waiting-room, with marble
pilasters, and frescoes depicting the exploration of the Chaloosa
River Valley by Père Emile Fauthoux in 1740. The benches
were shelves of ponderous mahogany; the news-stand a marble
kiosk with a brass grill. Down the echoing spaces of the hall
the delegates paraded after Willy Lumsen's banner, the men
waving their cigars, the women conscious of their new frocks
and strings of beads, all singing to the tune of Auld Lang
Syne the official City Song, written by Chum Frink:
Good old Zenith,
Our kin and kith,
Wherever we may be,
Hats in the ring,
We blithely sing
Of thy Prosperity.
Warren Whitby, the broker, who had a gift of verse for
banquets and birthdays, had added to Frink's City Song a
special verse for the realtors' convention:
Oh, here we come,
The fellows from
Zenith, the Zip Citee.
We wish to state
In real estate
There's none so live as we.
Babbitt was stirred to hysteric patriotism. He leaped on
a bench, shouting to the crowd:
"What's the matter with Zenith?''
"She's all right!''
"What's best ole town in the U. S. A.?''
"Zeeeeeen-ith!''
The patient poor people waiting for the midnight train
stared in unenvious wonder—Italian women with shawls, old
weary men with broken shoes, roving road-wise boys in suits
which had been flashy when they were new but which were
faded now and wrinkled.
Babbitt perceived that as an official delegate he must be
more dignified. With Wing and Rogers he tramped up and
down the cement platform beside the waiting Pullmans.
Motor-driven baggage-trucks and red-capped porters carrying
bags sped down the platform with an agreeable effect of activity.
Arc-lights glared and stammered overhead. The glossy
yellow sleeping-cars shone impressively. Babbitt made his
voice to be measured and lordly; he thrust out his abdomen
and rumbled, "We got to see to it that the convention lets
the Legislature understand just where they get off in this
matter of taxing realty transfers.'' Wing uttered approving
grunts and Babbitt swelled—gloated—
The blind of a Pullman compartment was raised, and Babbitt
looked into an unfamiliar world. The occupant of the
compartment was Lucile McKelvey, the pretty wife of the
millionaire contractor. Possibly, Babbitt thrilled, she was
going to Europe! On the seat beside her was a bunch of
orchids and violets, and a yellow paper-bound book which
seemed foreign. While he stared, she picked up the book,
then glanced out of the window as though she was bored.
She must have looked straight at him, and he had met her,
but she gave no sign. She languidly pulled down the blind,
and he stood still, a cold feeling of insignificance in his heart.
But on the train his pride was restored by meeting delegates
from Sparta, Pioneer, and other smaller cities of the state,
who listened respectfully when, as a magnifico from the
metropolis of Zenith, he explained politics and the value of a
Good Sound Business Administration. They fell joyfully into
shop-talk, the purest and most rapturous form of conversation:
"How'd this fellow Rountree make out with this big apartment-hotel
he was going to put up? Whadde do? Get out
bonds to finance it?'' asked a Sparta broker.
"Well, I'll tell you,'' said Babbitt. "Now if I'd been
handling it—''
"So,'' Elbert Wing was droning, "I hired this shop-window
for a week, and put up a big sign, `Toy Town for Tiny Tots,'
and stuck in a lot of doll houses and some dinky little trees,
and then down at the bottom, `Baby Likes This Dollydale,
but Papa and Mama Will Prefer Our Beautiful Bungalows,'
and you know, that certainly got folks talking, and first week
we sold—''
The trucks sang "lickety-lick, lickety-lick'' as the train ran
through the factory district. Furnaces spurted flame, and
power-hammers were clanging. Red lights, green lights,
furious white lights rushed past, and Babbitt was important
again, and eager.
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.''
V
The meetings of the convention were held in the ballroom
of the Allen House. In an anteroom was the office of the
chairman of the executive committee. He was the busiest man
in the convention; he was so busy that he got nothing done
whatever. He sat at a marquetry table, in a room littered
with crumpled paper and, all day long, town-boosters and
lobbyists and orators who wished to lead debates came and
whispered to him, whereupon he looked vague, and said rapidly,
"Yes, yes, that's a fine idea; we'll do that,'' and instantly
forgot all about it, lighted a cigar and forgot that too, while
the telephone rang mercilessly and about him men kept beseeching,
"Say, Mr. Chairman—say, Mr. Chairman!'' without
penetrating his exhausted hearing.
In the exhibit-room were plans of the new suburbs of Sparta,
pictures of the new state capitol, at Galop de Vache, and
large ears of corn with the label, "Nature's Gold, from Shelby
County, the Garden Spot of God's Own Country.''
The real convention consisted of men muttering in hotel
bedrooms or in groups amid the badge-spotted crowd in the
hotel-lobby, but there was a show of public meetings.
The first of them opened with a welcome by the mayor
of Monarch. The pastor of the First Christian Church of
Monarch, a large man with a long damp frontal lock, informed
God that the real-estate men were here now.
The venerable Minnemagantic realtor, Major Carlton Tuke,
read a paper in which he denounced coöperative stores. William
A. Larkin of Eureka gave a comforting prognosis of
"The Prospects for Increased Construction,'' and reminded
them that plate-glass prices were two points lower.
The convention was on.
The delegates were entertained, incessantly and firmly. The
Monarch Chamber of Commerce gave them a banquet, and
the Manufacturers' Association an afternoon reception, at
which a chrysanthemum was presented to each of the ladies,
and to each of the men a leather bill-fold inscribed "From
Monarch the Mighty Motor Mart.''
Mrs. Crosby Knowlton, wife of the manufacturer of Fleetwing
Automobiles, opened her celebrated Italian garden and
served tea. Six hundred real-estate men and wives ambled
down the autumnal paths. Perhaps three hundred of them
were quietly inconspicuous; perhaps three hundred vigorously
exclaimed, "This is pretty slick, eh?'' surreptitiously picked the
late asters and concealed them in their pockets, and tried to
get near enough to Mrs. Knowlton to shake her lovely hand.
Without request, the Zenith delegates (except Rountree) gathered
round a marble dancing nymph and sang "Here we come,
the fellows from Zenith, the Zip Citee.''
It chanced that all the delegates from Pioneer belonged to
the Brotherly and Protective Order of Elks, and they produced
an enormous banner lettered: "B. P. O. E.—Best People
on Earth—Boost Pioneer, Oh Eddie.'' Nor was Galop
de Vache, the state capital, to be slighted. The leader of the
Galop de Vache delegation was a large, reddish, roundish man,
but active. He took off his coat, hurled his broad black felt
hat on the ground, rolled up his sleeves, climbed upon the sundial,
spat, and bellowed:
"We'll tell the world, and the good lady who's giving the
show this afternoon, that the bonniest burg in this man's state
is Galop de Vache. You boys can talk about your zip, but
jus' lemme murmur that old Galop has the largest proportion
of home-owning citizens in the state; and when folks own their
homes, they ain't starting labor-troubles, and they're raising
kids instead of raising hell! Galop de Vache! The town
for homey folks! The town that eats 'em alive oh, Bosco!
We'll—tell—the—world!''
The guests drove off; the garden shivered into quiet. But
Mrs. Crosby Knowlton sighed as she looked at a marble seat
warm from five hundred summers of Amalfi. On the face of
a winged sphinx which supported it some one had drawn a
mustache in lead-pencil. Crumpled paper napkins were
dumped among the Michaelmas daisies. On the walk, like
shredded lovely flesh, were the petals of the last gallant rose.
Cigarette stubs floated in the goldfish pool, trailing an evil
stain as they swelled and disintegrated, and beneath the marble
seat, the fragments carefully put together, was a smashed
teacup.
VI
As he rode back to the hotel Babbitt reflected, "Myra would
have enjoyed all this social agony.'' For himself he cared less
for the garden party than for the motor tours which the
Monarch Chamber of Commerce had arranged. Indefatigably
he viewed water-reservoirs, suburban trolley-stations, and tanneries.
He devoured the statistics which were given to him,
and marveled to his roommate, W. A. Rogers, "Of course this
town isn't a patch on Zenith; it hasn't got our outlook and
natural resources; but did you know—I nev' did till to-day
—that they manufactured seven hundred and sixty-three million
feet of lumber last year? What d' you think of that!''
He was nervous as the time for reading his paper approached.
When he stood on the low platform before the
convention, he trembled and saw only a purple haze. But he
was in earnest, and when he had finished the formal paper
he talked to them, his hands in his pockets, his spectacled
face a flashing disk, like a plate set up on edge in the lamplight.
They shouted "That's the stuff!'' and in the discussion
afterward they referred with impressiveness to "our
friend and brother, Mr. George F. Babbitt.'' He had in fifteen
minutes changed from a minor delegate to a personage almost
as well known as that diplomat of business, Cecil Rountree.
After the meeting, delegates from all over the state said,
"Hower you, Brother Babbitt?'' Sixteen complete strangers
called him "George,'' and three men took him into corners
to confide, "Mighty glad you had the courage to stand up
and give the Profession a real boost. Now I've always maintained—''
Next morning, with tremendous casualness, Babbitt asked
the girl at the hotel news-stand for the newspapers from
Zenith. There was nothing in the Press, but in the
Advocate-Times, on the third page— He gasped. They had printed
his picture and a half-column account. The heading was
"Sensation at Annual Land-men's Convention. G. F. Babbitt,
Prominent Ziptown Realtor, Keynoter in Fine Address.''
He murmured reverently, "I guess some of the folks on
Floral Heights will sit up and take notice now, and pay a,
little attention to old Georgie!''
VII
It was the last meeting. The delegations were presenting
the claims of their several cities to the next year's convention.
Orators were announcing that "Galop de Vache, the Capital
City, the site of Kremer College and of the Upholtz Knitting
Works, is the recognized center of culture and high-class
enterprise;'' and that "Hamburg, the Big Little City with the
Logical Location, where every man is open-handed and every
woman a heaven-born hostess, throws wide to you her hospitable
gates.''
In the midst of these more diffident invitations, the golden
doors of the ballroom opened with a blatting of trumpets, and
a circus parade rolled in. It was composed of the Zenith
brokers, dressed as cowpunchers, bareback riders, Japanese
jugglers. At the head was big Warren Whitby, in the bearskin
and gold-and-crimson coat of a drum-major. Behind
him, as a clown, beating a bass drum, extraordinarily happy
and noisy, was Babbitt.
Warren Whitby leaped on the platform, made merry play
with his baton, and observed, "Boyses and girlses, the time
has came to get down to cases. A dyed-in-the-wool Zenithite
sure loves his neighbors, but we've made up our minds to grab
this convention off our neighbor burgs like we've grabbed the
condensed-milk business and the paper-box business and—''
J. Harry Barmhill, the convention chairman, hinted, "We're
grateful to you, Mr. Uh, but you must give the other boys a
chance to hand in their bids now.''
A fog-horn voice blared, "In Eureka we'll promise free
motor rides through the prettiest country—''
Running down the aisle, clapping his hands, a lean bald
young man cried, "I'm from Sparta! Our Chamber of Commerce
has wired me they've set aside eight thousand dollars,
in real money, for the entertainment of the convention!''
A clerical-looking man rose to clamor, "Money talks! Move
we accept the bid from Sparta!''
It was accepted.
VIII
The Committee on Resolutions was reporting. They said
that Whereas Almighty God in his beneficent mercy had seen
fit to remove to a sphere of higher usefulness some thirty-six
realtors of the state the past year, Therefore it was the sentiment
of this convention assembled that they were sorry God
had done it, and the secretary should be, and hereby was,
instructed to spread these resolutions on the minutes, and to
console the bereaved families by sending them each a copy.
A second resolution authorized the president of the
S.A.R.E.B. to spend fifteen thousand dollars in lobbying for
sane tax measures in the State Legislature. This resolution
had a good deal to say about Menaces to Sound Business and
clearing the Wheels of Progress from ill-advised and shortsighted
obstacles.
The Committee on Committees reported, and with startled
awe Babbitt learned that he had been appointed a member
of the Committee on Torrens Titles.
He rejoiced, "I said it was going to be a great year! Georgie,
old son, you got big things ahead of you! You're a natural-born
orator and a good mixer and— Zowie!''
IX
There was no formal entertainment provided for the last
evening. Babbitt had planned to go home, but that afternoon
the Jered Sassburgers of Pioneer suggested that Babbitt
and W. A. Rogers have tea with them at the Catalpa Inn.
Teas were not unknown to Babbitt—his wife and he
earnestly attended them at least twice a year—but they were
sufficiently exotic to make him feel important. He sat at a
glass-covered table in the Art Room of the Inn, with its
painted rabbits, mottoes lettered on birch bark, and waitresses
being artistic in Dutch caps; he ate insufficient lettuce sandwiches,
and was lively and naughty with Mrs. Sassburger, who
was as smooth and large-eyed as a cloak-model. Sassburger
and he had met two days before, so they were calling each
other "Georgie'' and "Sassy.''
Sassburger said prayerfully, "Say, boys, before you go,
seeing this is the last chance, I've got it, up in
my room, and
Miriam here is the best little mixelogist in the Stati Unidos
like us Italians say.''
With wide flowing gestures, Babbitt and Rogers followed
the Sassburgers to their room. Mrs. Sassburger shrieked,
"Oh, how terrible!'' when she saw that she had left a chemise
of sheer lavender crêpe on the bed. She tucked it into a bag,
while Babbitt giggled, "Don't mind us; we're a couple o'
little divvils!''
Sassburger telephoned for ice, and the bell-boy who brought
it said, prosaically and unprompted, "Highball glasses or cocktail?''
Miriam Sassburger mixed the cocktails in one of those
dismal, nakedly white water-pitchers which exist only in hotels.
When they had finished the first round she proved by intoning
"Think you boys could stand another—you got a dividend
coming'' that, though she was but a woman, she knew the
complete and perfect rite of cocktail-drinking.
Outside, Babbitt hinted to Rogers, "Say, W. A., old rooster,
it comes over me that I could stand it if we didn't go back
to the lovin' wives, this handsome Abend, but just
kind of
stayed in Monarch and threw a party, heh?''
"George, you speak with the tongue of wisdom and
sagashiteriferousness. El Wing's wife has gone on to Pittsburg.
Let's see if we can't gather him in.''
At half-past seven they sat in their room, with Elbert Wing
and two up-state delegates. Their coats were off, their vests
open, their faces red, their voices emphatic. They were finishing
a bottle of corrosive bootlegged whisky and imploring the
bell-boy, "Say, son, can you get us some more of this embalming
fluid?'' They were smoking large cigars and dropping
ashes and stubs on the carpet. With windy guffaws they were
telling stories. They were, in fact, males in a happy state
of nature.
Babbitt sighed, "I don't know how it strikes you hellions,
but personally I like this busting loose for a change, and kicking
over a couple of mountains and climbing up on the North
Pole and waving the aurora borealis around.''
The man from Sparta, a grave, intense youngster, babbled,
"Say! I guess I'm as good a husband as the run of the mill,
but God, I do get so tired of going home every evening, and
nothing to see but the movies. That's why I go out and drill
with the National Guard. I guess I got the nicest little wife
in my burg, but— Say! Know what I wanted to do as a
kid? Know what I wanted to do? Wanted to be a big
chemist. Tha's what I wanted to do. But Dad chased me
out on the road selling kitchenware, and here I'm settled
down—settled for
life—not a chance! Oh, who the
devil
started this funeral talk? How 'bout 'nother lil drink? `And
a-noth-er drink wouldn' do 's 'ny harmmmmmmm.' ''
"Yea. Cut the sob-stuff,'' said W. A. Rogers genially.
"You boys know I'm the village songster? Come on nowsing
up:
Said the old Obadiah to the young Obadiah,
`I am dry, Obadiah, I am dry.'
Said the young Obadiah to the old Obadiah,
`So am I, Obadiah, so am I.' ''
X
They had dinner in the Moorish Grillroom of the Hotel
Sedgwick. Somewhere, somehow, they seemed to have gathered
in two other comrades: a manufacturer of fly-paper and
a dentist. They all drank whisky from tea-cups, and they
were humorous, and never listened to one another, except when
W. A. Rogers "kidded'' the Italian waiter.
"Say, Gooseppy,'' he said innocently, "I want a couple o'
fried elephants' ears.''
"Sorry, sir, we haven't any.''
"Huh? No elephants' ears? What do you know about
that!'' Rogers turned to Babbitt. "Pedro says the elephants'
ears are all out!''
"Well, I'll be switched!'' said the man from Sparta, with
difficulty hiding his laughter.
"Well, in that case, Carlo, just bring me a hunk o' steak
and a couple o' bushels o' French fried potatoes and some
peas,'' Rogers went on. "I suppose back in dear old sunny
It' the Eyetalians get their fresh garden peas out of the can.''
"No, sir, we have very nice peas in Italy.''
"Is that a fact! Georgie, do you hear that? They get their
fresh garden peas out of the garden, in Italy! By golly, you
live and learn, don't you, Antonio, you certainly do live and
learn, if you live long enough and keep your strength. All
right, Garibaldi, just shoot me in that steak, with about two
printers'-reams of French fried spuds on the promenade deck,
comprehenez-vous, Michelovitch Angeloni?''
Afterward Elbert Wing admired, "Gee, you certainly did
have that poor Dago going, W. A. He couldn't make you
out at all!''
In the Monarch Herald, Babbitt found an advertisement
which he read aloud, to applause and laughter:
Old Colony Theatre
Shake the Old Dogs to the
WROLLICKING WRENS
The bonniest bevy of beauteous
bathing babes in burlesque.
Pete Menutti and his
Oh, Gee, Kids.
This is the straight steer, Benny, the painless chicklets
of the Wrollicking Wrens are the cuddlingest bunch
that ever hit town. Steer the feet, get the card board,
and twist the pupils to the PDQest show ever. You
will get 111% on your kale in this fun-fest. The
Calroza Sisters are sure some lookers and will give
you a run for your gelt. Jock Silbersteen is one of
the pepper lads and slips you a dose of real laughter.
Shoot the up and down to Jackson and West for graceful
tappers. They run 1-2 under the wire. Provin and
Adams will blow the blues in their laugh skit "Hootch
Mon!'' Something doing, boys. Listen to what the
Hep Bird twitters.
"Sounds like a juicy show to me. Let's all take it in,'' said
Babbitt.
But they put off departure as long as they could. They
were safe while they sat here, legs firmly crossed under the
table, but they felt unsteady; they were afraid of navigating
the long and slippery floor of the grillroom under the eyes of
the other guests and the too-attentive waiters.
When they did venture, tables got in their way, and they
sought to cover embarrassment by heavy jocularity at the coatroom.
As the girl handed out their hats, they smiled at her,
and hoped that she, a cool and expert judge, would feel that
they were gentlemen. They croaked at one another, "Who
owns the bum lid?'' and "You take a good one, George; I'll
take what's left,'' and to the check-girl they stammered, "Better
come along, sister! High, wide, and fancy evening ahead!''
All of them tried to tip her, urging one another, "No! Wait!
Here! I got it right here!'' Among them, they gave her
three dollars.
XI
Flamboyantly smoking cigars they sat in a box at the burlesque
show, their feet up on the rail, while a chorus of twenty
daubed, worried, and inextinguishably respectable grandams
swung their legs in the more elementary chorus-evolutions,
and a Jewish comedian made vicious fun of Jews. In the
entr'actes they met other lone delegates. A dozen of them
went in taxicabs out to Bright Blossom Inn, where the blossoms
were made of dusty paper festooned along a room low
and stinking, like a cow-stable no longer wisely used.
Here, whisky was served openly, in glasses. Two or three
clerks, who on pay-day longed to be taken for millionaires,
sheepishly danced with telephone-girls and manicure-girls in
the narrow space between the tables. Fantastically whirled
the professionals, a young man in sleek evening-clothes and a
slim mad girl in emerald silk, with amber hair flung up as
jaggedly as flames. Babbitt tried to dance with her. He
shuffled along the floor, too bulky to be guided, his steps
unrelated to the rhythm of the jungle music, and in his staggering
he would have fallen, had she not held him with supple
kindly strength. He was blind and deaf from prohibition-era
alcohol; he could not see the tables, the faces. But he was
overwhelmed by the girl and her young pliant warmth.
When she had firmly returned him to his group, he remembered,
by a connection quite untraceable, that his mother's
mother had been Scotch, and with head thrown back, eyes
closed, wide mouth indicating ecstasy, he sang, very slowly
and richly, "Loch Lomond.''
But that was the last of his mellowness and jolly companionship.
The man from Sparta said he was a "bum singer,'' and
for ten minutes Babbitt quarreled with him, in a loud, unsteady,
heroic indignation. They called for drinks till the
manager insisted that the place was closed. All the while
Babbitt felt a hot raw desire for more brutal amusements.
When W. A. Rogers drawled, "What say we go down the line
and look over the girls?'' he agreed savagely. Before they
went, three of them secretly made appointments with the professional
dancing girl, who agreed "Yes, yes, sure, darling'' to
everything they said, and amiably forgot them.
As they drove back through the outskirts of Monarch, down
streets of small brown wooden cottages of workmen, characterless
as cells, as they rattled across warehouse-districts which
by drunken night seemed vast and perilous, as they were borne
toward the red lights and violent automatic pianos and the
stocky women who simpered, Babbitt was frightened. He
wanted to leap from the taxicab, but all his body was a murky
fire, and he groaned, "Too late to quit now,'' and knew that
he did not want to quit.
There was, they felt, one very humorous incident on the
way. A broker from Minnemagantic said, "Monarch is a lot
sportier than Zenith. You Zenith tightwads haven't got any
joints like these here.'' Babbitt raged, "That's a dirty lie!
Snothin' you can't find in Zenith. Believe me, we got more
houses and hootch-parlors an' all kinds o' dives than any burg
in the state.''
He realized they were laughing at him; he desired to fight;
and forgot it in such musty unsatisfying experiments as he
had not known since college.
In the morning, when he returned to Zenith, his desire for
rebellion was partly satisfied. He had retrograded to a shame-faced
contentment. He was irritable. He did not smile when
W. A. Rogers complained, "Ow, what a head! I certainly do
feel like the wrath of God this morning. Say! I know what
was the trouble! Somebody went and put alcohol in my
booze last night.''
Babbitt's excursion was never known to his family, nor to
any one in Zenith save Rogers and Wing. It was not officially
recognized even by himself. If it had any consequences, they
have not been discovered.