15. CHAPTER XV
I
HIS march to greatness was not without disastrous stumbling.
Fame did not bring the social advancement which the Babbitts
deserved. They were not asked to join the Tonawanda
Country Club nor invited to the dances at the Union. Himself,
Babbitt fretted, he didn't "care a fat hoot for all these
highrollers, but the wife would kind of like to be Among Those
Present.'' He nervously awaited his university class-dinner
and an evening of furious intimacy with such social leaders as
Charles McKelvey the millionaire contractor, Max Kruger
the banker, Irving Tate the tool-manufacturer, and Adelbert
Dobson the fashionable interior decorator. Theoretically he
was their friend, as he had been in college, and when he encountered
them they still called him "Georgie,'' but he didn't
seem to encounter them often, and they never invited him to
dinner (with champagne and a butler) at their houses on
Royal Ridge.
All the week before the class-dinner he thought of them.
"No reason why we shouldn't become real chummy now!''
II
Like all true American diversions and spiritual outpourings,
the dinner of the men of the Class of 1896 was thoroughly organized.
The dinner-committee hammered like a sales-corporation.
Once a week they sent out reminders:
TICKLER NO. 3
Old man, are you going to be with us at the livest
Friendship Feed the alumni of the good old U have
ever known? The alumnæ of '08 turned out 60%
strong. Are we boys going to be beaten by a bunch
of skirts? Come on, fellows, let's work up some
real genuine enthusiasm and all boost together for
the snappiest dinner yet! Elegant eats, short ginger-talks,
and memories shared together of the
brightest, gladdest days of life.
The dinner was held in a private room at the Union Club.
The club was a dingy building, three pretentious old dwellings
knocked together, and the entrance-hall resembled a potato
cellar, yet the Babbitt who was free of the magnificence of the
Athletic Club entered with embarrassment. He nodded to the
doorman, an ancient proud negro with brass buttons and a
blue tail-coat, and paraded through the hall, trying to look
like a member.
Sixty men had come to the dinner. They made islands and
eddies in the hall; they packed the elevator and the corners
of the private dining-room. They tried to be intimate and
enthusiastic. They appeared to one another exactly as they had
in college—as raw youngsters whose present mustaches, baldnesses,
paunches, and wrinkles were but jovial disguises put
on for the evening. "You haven't changed a particle!'' they
marveled. The men whom they could not recall they addressed,
"Well, well, great to see you again, old man. What
are you— Still doing the same thing?''
Some one was always starting a cheer or a college song,
and it was always thinning into silence. Despite their resolution
to be democratic they divided into two sets: the men with
dress-clothes and the men without. Babbitt (extremely in
dress-clothes) went from one group to the other. Though
he was, almost frankly, out for social conquest, he sought Paul
Riesling first. He found him alone, neat and silent.
Paul sighed, "I'm no good at this handshaking and `well,
look who's here' bunk.''
"Rats now, Paulibus, loosen up and be a mixer! Finest
bunch of boys on earth! Say, you seem kind of glum. What's
matter?''
"Oh, the usual. Run-in with Zilla.''
"Come on! Let's wade in and forget our troubles.''
He kept Paul beside him, but worked toward the spot where
Charles McKelvey stood warming his admirers like a furnace.
McKelvey had been the hero of the Class of '96; not only
football captain and hammer-thrower but debater, and passable
in what the State University considered scholarship. He
had gone on, had captured the construction-company once
owned by the Dodsworths, best-known pioneer family of Zenith.
He built state capitols, skyscrapers, railway terminals.
He was a heavy-shouldered, big-chested man, but not sluggish.
There was a quiet humor in his eyes, a syrup-smooth quickness
in his speech, which intimidated politicians and warned reporters;
and in his presence the most intelligent scientist or
the most sensitive artist felt thin-blooded, unworldly, and a
little shabby. He was, particularly when he was influencing
legislatures or hiring labor-spies, very easy and lovable and
gorgeous. He was baronial; he was a peer in the rapidly
crystallizing American aristocracy, inferior only to the haughty
Old Families. (In Zenith, an Old Family is one which came
to town before 1840.) His power was the greater because he
was not hindered by scruples, by either the vice or the virtue
of the older Puritan tradition.
McKelvey was being placidly merry now with the great,
the manufacturers and bankers, the land-owners and lawyers
and surgeons who had chauffeurs and went to Europe. Babbitt
squeezed among them. He liked McKelvey's smile as
much as the social advancement to be had from his favor. If
in Paul's company he felt ponderous and protective, with McKelvey
he felt slight and adoring.
He heard McKelvey say to Max Kruger, the banker, "Yes,
we'll put up Sir Gerald Doak.'' Babbitt's democratic love for
titles became a rich relish. "You know, he's one of the biggest
iron-men in England, Max. Horribly well-off.... Why,
hello, old Georgie! Say, Max, George Babbitt is getting fatter
than I am!''
The chairman shouted, "Take your seats, fellows!''
"Shall we make a move, Charley?'' Babbitt said casually
to McKelvey.
"Right. Hello, Paul! How's the old fiddler? Planning to
sit anywhere special, George? Come on, let's grab some seats.
Come on, Max. Georgie, I read about your speeches in the
campaign. Bully work!''
After that, Babbitt would have followed him through fire.
He was enormously busy during the dinner, now bumblingly
cheering Paul, now approaching McKelvey with "Hear, you're
going to build some piers in Brooklyn,'' now noting how enviously
the failures of the class, sitting by themselves in a
weedy group, looked up to him in his association with the
nobility, now warming himself in the Society Talk of McKelvey
and Max Kruger. They spoke of a "jungle dance'' for which
Mona Dodsworth had decorated her house with thousands of
orchids. They spoke, with an excellent imitation of casualness,
of a dinner in Washington at which McKelvey had met a Senator,
a Balkan princess, and an English major-general. McKelvey
called the princess "Jenny,'' and let it be known that he
had danced with her.
Babbitt was thrilled, but not so weighted with awe as to
be silent. If he was not invited by them to dinner, he was
yet accustomed to talking with bank-presidents, congressmen,
and clubwomen who entertained poets. He was bright and
referential with McKelvey:
"Say, Charley, juh remember in Junior year how we chartered
a sea-going hack and chased down to Riverdale, to the
big show Madame Brown used to put on? Remember how you
beat up that hick constabule that tried to run us in, and we
pinched the pants-pressing sign and took and hung it on Prof.
Morrison's door? Oh, gosh, those were the days!''
Those, McKelvey agreed, were the days.
Babbitt had reached "It isn't the books you study in college
but the friendships you make that counts'' when the men
at head of the table broke into song. He attacked McKelvey:
"It's a shame, uh, shame to drift apart because our, uh,
business activities lie in different fields. I've enjoyed talking
over the good old days. You and Mrs. McKelvey must come
to dinner some night.''
Vaguely, "Yes, indeed—''
"Like to talk to you about the growth of real estate out
beyond your Grantsville warehouse. I might be able to tip
you off to a thing or two, possibly.''
"Splendid! We must have dinner together, Georgie. Just
let me know. And it will be a great pleasure to have your
wife and you at the house,'' said McKelvey, much less vaguely.
Then the chairman's voice, that prodigious voice which once
had roused them to cheer defiance at rooters from Ohio or
Michigan or Indiana, whooped, "Come on, you wombats! All
together in the long yell!'' Babbitt felt that life would never
be sweeter than now, when he joined with Paul Riesling and
the newly recovered hero, McKelvey, in:
Baaaaaattle-ax
Get an ax,
Bal-ax,
Get-nax,
Who, who? The U.!
Hooroo!
III
The Babbitts invited the McKelveys to dinner, in early December,
and the McKelveys not only accepted but, after changing
the date once or twice, actually came.
The Babbitts somewhat thoroughly discussed the details of
the dinner, from the purchase of a bottle of champagne to the
number of salted almonds to be placed before each person.
Especially did they mention the matter of the other guests.
To the last Babbitt held out for giving Paul Riesling the benefit
of being with the McKelveys. "Good old Charley would
like Paul and Verg Gunch better than some highfalutin' Willy
boy,'' he insisted, but Mrs. Babbitt interrupted his observations
with, "Yes—perhaps— I think I'll try to get some
Lynnhaven oysters,'' and when she was quite ready she invited
Dr. J. T. Angus, the oculist, and a dismally respectable lawyer
named Maxwell, with their glittering wives.
Neither Angus nor Maxwell belonged to the Elks or to the
Athletic Club; neither of them had ever called Babbitt
"brother'' or asked his opinions on carburetors. The only
"human people'' whom she invited, Babbitt raged, were the
Littlefields; and Howard Littlefield at times became so statistical
that Babbitt longed for the refreshment of Gunch's, "Well,
old lemon-pie-face, what's the good word?''
Immediately after lunch Mrs. Babbitt began to set the
table for the seven-thirty dinner to the McKelveys, and Babbitt
was, by order, home at four. But they didn't find anything
for him to do, and three times Mrs. Babbitt scolded,
"Do please try to keep out of the way!'' He stood in the
door of the garage, his lips drooping, and wished that Littlefield
or Sam Doppelbrau or somebody would come along and
talk to him. He saw Ted sneaking about the corner of the
house.
"What's the matter, old man?'' said Babbitt.
"Is that you, thin, owld one? Gee, Ma certainly is on the
warpath! I told her Rone and I would jus' soon not be let in
on the fiesta to-night, and she bit me. She says I got to take
a bath, too. But, say, the Babbitt men will be some lookers
to-night! Little Theodore in a dress-suit!''
"The Babbitt men!'' Babbitt liked the sound of it. He put
his arm about the boy's shoulder. He wished that Paul Riesling
had a daughter, so that Ted might marry her. "Yes, your
mother is kind of rouncing round, all right,'' he said, and they
laughed together, and sighed together, and dutifully went in
to dress.
The McKelveys were less than fifteen minutes late.
Babbitt hoped that the Doppelbraus would see the McKelveys'
limousine, and their uniformed chauffeur, waiting in
front.
The dinner was well cooked and incredibly plentiful, and
Mrs. Babbitt had brought out her grandmother's silver
candlesticks. Babbitt worked hard. He was good. He told none
of the jokes he wanted to tell. He listened to the others. He
started Maxwell off with a resounding, "Let's hear about your
trip to the Yellowstone.'' He was laudatory, extremely laudatory.
He found opportunities to remark that Dr. Angus was
a benefactor to humanity, Maxwell and Howard Littlefield profound
scholars, Charles McKelvey an inspiration to ambitious
youth, and Mrs. McKelvey an adornment to the social circles
of Zenith, Washington, New York, Paris, and numbers of other
places.
But he could not stir them. It was a dinner without a soul.
For no reason that was clear to Babbitt, heaviness was over
them and they spoke laboriously and unwillingly.
He concentrated on Lucille McKelvey, carefully not looking
at her blanched lovely shoulder and the tawny silken bared
which supported her frock.
"I suppose you'll be going to Europe pretty soon again,
won't you?'' he invited.
"I'd like awfully to run over to Rome for a few weeks.''
"I suppose you see a lot of pictures and music and curios
and everything there.''
"No, what I really go for is: there's a little trattoria on the
Via della Scrofa where you get the best fettuccine in the world.''
"Oh, I— Yes. That must be nice to try that. Yes.''
At a quarter to ten McKelvey discovered with profound regret
that his wife had a headache. He said blithely, as Babbitt
helped him with his coat, "We must lunch together some time,
and talk over the old days.''
When the others had labored out, at half-past ten, Babbitt
turned to his wife, pleading, "Charley said he had a corking
time and we must lunch—said they wanted to have us up to
the house for dinner before long.''
She achieved, "Oh, it's just been one of those quiet evenings
that are often so much more enjoyable than noisy parties
where everybody talks at once and doesn't really settle down
to-nice quiet enjoyment.''
But from his cot on the sleeping-porch he heard her weeping,
slowly, without hope.
IV
For a month they watched the social columns, and waited
for a return dinner-invitation.
As the hosts of Sir Gerald Doak, the McKelveys were headlined
all the week after the Babbitts' dinner. Zenith ardently
received Sir Gerald (who had come to America to buy coal).
The newspapers interviewed him on prohibition, Ireland, unemployment,
naval aviation, the rate of exchange, tea-drinking
versus whisky-drinking, the psychology of American women,
and daily life as lived by English county families. Sir Gerald
seemed to have heard of all those topics. The McKelveys
gave him a Singhalese dinner, and Miss Elnora Pearl Bates,
society editor of the Advocate-Times, rose to her highest lark-note.
Babbitt read aloud at breakfast-table:
'Twixt the original and Oriental decorations, the strange
and delicious food, and the personalities both of the distinguished
guests, the charming hostess and the noted host,
never has Zenith seen a more recherche affair than the
Ceylon dinner-dance given last evening by Mr. and Mrs.
Charles McKelvey to Sir Gerald Doak. Methought as we
—fortunate one!—were privileged to view that fairy and
foreign scene, nothing at Monte Carlo or the choicest ambassadorial
sets of foreign capitals could be more lovely.
It is not for nothing that Zenith is in matters social rapidly
becoming known as the choosiest inland city in the country.
Though he is too modest to admit it, Lord Doak gives
a cachet to our smart quartier such as it has not received
since the ever-memorable visit of the Earl of Sittingbourne.
Not only is he of the British peerage, but he is also, on dit,
a leader of the British metal industries. As he comes from
Nottingham, a favorite haunt of Robin Hood, though now,
we are informed by Lord Doak, a live modern city of 275,573
inhabitants, and important lace as well as other industries,
we like to think that perhaps through his veins runs
some of the blood, both virile red and bonny blue, of that
earlier lord o' the good greenwood, the roguish Robin.
The lovely Mrs. McKelvey never was more fascinating
than last evening in her black net gown relieved by dainty
bands of silver and at her exquisite waist a glowing cluster
of Aaron Ward roses.
Babbitt said bravely, "I hope they don't invite us to meet
this Lord Doak guy. Darn sight rather just have a nice quiet
little dinner with Charley and the Missus.''
At the Zenith Athletic Club they discussed it amply. "I
s'pose we'll have to call McKelvey `Lord Chaz' from now on,''
said Sidney Finkelstein.
"It beats all get-out,'' meditated that man of data, Howard
Littlefield, "how hard it is for some people to get things
straight. Here they call this fellow `Lord Doak' when it ought
to be `Sir Gerald.' ''
Babbitt marvelled, "Is that a fact! Well, well! `Sir Gerald,'
eh? That's what you call um, eh? Well, sir, I'm glad to
know that.''
Later he informed his salesmen, "It's funnier 'n a goat the
way some folks that, just because they happen to lay up a big
wad, go entertaining famous foreigners, don't have any more
idea 'n a rabbit how to address 'em so's to make 'em feel at
home!''
That evening, as he was driving home, he passed McKelvey's
limousine and saw Sir Gerald, a large, ruddy, pop-eyed,
Teutonic Englishman whose dribble of yellow mustache gave
him an aspect sad and doubtful. Babbitt drove on slowly,
oppressed by futility. He had a sudden, unexplained, and
horrible conviction that the McKelveys were laughing at him.
He betrayed his depression by the violence with which he
informed his wife, "Folks that really tend to business haven't
got the time to waste on a bunch like the McKelveys. This
society stuff is like any other hobby; if you devote yourself to
it, you get on. But I like to have a chance to visit with you
and the children instead of all this idiotic chasing round.''
They did not speak of the McKelveys again.
V
It was a shame, at this worried time, to have to think about
the Overbrooks.
Ed Overbrook was a classmate of Babbitt who had been a
failure. He had a large family and a feeble insurance business
out in the suburb of Dorchester. He was gray and thin and
unimportant. He had always been gray and thin and unimportant.
He was the person whom, in any group, you forgot
to introduce, then introduced with extra enthusiasm. He had
admired Babbitt's good-fellowship in college, had admired
ever since his power in real estate, his beautiful house and
wonderful clothes. It pleased Babbitt, though it bothered him
with a sense of responsibility. At the class-dinner he had
seen poor Overbrook, in a shiny blue serge business-suit, being
diffident in a corner with three other failures. He had gone
over and been cordial: "Why, hello, young Ed! I hear you're
writing all the insurance in Dorchester now. Bully work!''
They recalled the good old days when Overbrook used to
write poetry. Overbrook embarrassed him by blurting, "Say,
Georgie, I hate to think of how we been drifting apart. I
wish you and Mrs. Babbitt would come to dinner some night.''
Babbitt boomed, "Fine! Sure! Just let me know. And
the wife and I want to have you at the house.'' He forgot
it, but unfortunately Ed Overbrook did not. Repeatedly he
telephoned to Babbitt, inviting him to dinner. "Might as
well go and get it over,'' Babbitt groaned to his wife. "But
don't it simply amaze you the way the poor fish doesn't know
the first thing about social etiquette? Think of him 'phoning
me, instead of his wife sitting down and writing us a regular
bid! Well, I guess we're stuck for it. That's the trouble
with all this class-brother hooptedoodle.''
He accepted Overbrook's next plaintive invitation, for an
evening two weeks off. A dinner two weeks off, even a family
dinner, never seems so appalling, till the two weeks have astoundingly
disappeared and one comes dismayed to the ambushed
hour. They had to change the date, because of their
own dinner to the McKelveys, but at last they gloomily drove
out to the Overbrooks' house in Dorchester.
It was miserable from the beginning. The Overbrooks had
dinner at six-thirty, while the Babbitts never dined before
seven. Babbitt permitted himself to be ten minutes late.
"Let's make it as short as possible. I think we'll duck out
quick. I'll say I have to be at the office extra early to-morrow,''
he planned.
The Overbrook house was depressing. It was the second
story of a wooden two-family dwelling; a place of baby-carriages,
old hats hung in the hall, cabbage-smell, and a Family
Bible on the parlor table. Ed Overbrook and his wife were
as awkward and threadbare as usual, and the other guests
were two dreadful families whose names Babbitt never caught
and never desired to catch. But he was touched, and disconcerted,
by the tactless way in which Overbrook praised
him: "We're mighty proud to have old George here to-night!
Of course you've all read about his speeches and oratory in
the papers—and the boy's good-looking, too, eh?—but what I
always think of is back in college, and what a great old mixer
he was, and one of the best swimmers in the class.''
Babbitt tried to be jovial; he worked at it; but he could
find nothing to interest him in Overbrook's timorousness, the
blankness of the other guests, or the drained stupidity of Mrs.
Overbrook, with her spectacles, drab skin, and tight-drawn
hair. He told his best Irish story, but it sank like soggy cake.
Most bleary moment of all was when Mrs. Overbrook, peering
out of her fog of nursing eight children and cooking and scrubbing,
tried to be conversational.
"I suppose you go to Chicago and New York right along,
Mr. Babbitt,'' she prodded.
"Well, I get to Chicago fairly often.''
"It must be awfully interesting. I suppose you take in all
the theaters.''
"Well, to tell the truth, Mrs. Overbrook, thing that hits
me best is a great big beefsteak at a Dutch restaurant in the
Loop!''
They had nothing more to say. Babbitt was sorry, but
there was no hope; the dinner was a failure. At ten, rousing
out of the stupor of meaningless talk, he said as cheerily as
he could, " 'Fraid we got to be starting, Ed. I've got a fellow
coming to see me early to-morrow.'' As Overbrook helped
him with his coat, Babbitt said, "Nice to rub up on the old
days! We must have lunch together, P.D.Q.''
Mrs. Babbitt sighed, on their drive home, "It was pretty
terrible. But how Mr. Overbrook does admire you!''
"Yep. Poor cuss! Seems to think I'm a little tin archangel,
and the best-looking man in Zenith.''
"Well, you're certainly not that but— Oh, Georgie, you
don't suppose we have to invite them to dinner at our house
now, do we?''
"Ouch! Gaw, I hope not!''
"See here, now, George! You didn't say anything about
it to Mr. Overbrook, did you?''
"No! Gee! No! Honest, I didn't! Just made a bluff
about having him to lunch some time.''
"Well.... Oh, dear.... I don't want to hurt their feelings.
But I don't see how I could stand another evening like
this one. And suppose somebody like Dr. and Mrs. Angus
came in when we had the Overbrooks there, and thought they
were friends of ours!''
For a week they worried, "We really ought to invite Ed and
his wife, poor devils!'' But as they never saw the Overbrooks,
they forgot them, and after a month or two they said, "That
really was the best way, just to let it slide. It wouldn't be kind
to them to have them here. They'd feel so out of
place and
hard-up in our home.''
They did not speak of the Overbrooks again.