II
A snow-blanched evening of ringing pavements and eager
lights.
Great golden lights of trolley-cars sliding along the packed
snow of the roadway. Demure lights of little houses. The
belching glare of a distant foundry, wiping out the sharp-edged
stars. Lights of neighborhood drug stores where friends
gossiped, well pleased, after the day's work.
The green light of a police-station, and greener radiance
on the snow; the drama of a patrol-wagon—gong beating like
a terrified heart, headlights scorching the crystal-sparkling
street, driver not a chauffeur but a policeman proud in uniform,
another policeman perilously dangling on the step at the
back, and a glimpse of the prisoner. A murderer, a burglar,
a coiner cleverly trapped?
An enormous graystone church with a rigid spire; dim light
in the Parlors, and cheerful droning of choir-practise. The
quivering green mercury-vapor light of a photo-engraver's
loft. Then the storming lights of down-town; parked cars with
ruby tail-lights; white arched entrances to movie theaters, like
frosty mouths of winter caves; electric signs—serpents and
little dancing men of fire; pink-shaded globes and scarlet jazz
music in a cheap up-stairs dance-hall; lights of Chinese restaurants,
lanterns painted with cherry-blossoms and with pagodas,
hung against lattices of lustrous gold and black. Small
dirty lamps in small stinking lunchrooms. The smart shopping-district,
with rich and quiet light on crystal pendants and furs
and suave surfaces of polished wood in velvet-hung reticent
windows. High above the street, an unexpected square hanging
in the darkness, the window of an office where some one was
working late, for a reason unknown and stimulating. A man
meshed in bankruptcy, an ambitious boy, an oil-man suddenly
become rich?
The air was shrewd, the snow was deep in uncleared alleys,
and beyond the city, Babbitt knew, were hillsides of snow-drift
among wintry oaks, and the curving ice-enchanted river.
He loved his city with passionate wonder. He lost the
accumulated weariness of business—worry and expansive oratory;
he felt young and potential. He was ambitious. It was
not enough to be a Vergil Gunch, an Orville Jones. No.
"They're bully fellows, simply lovely, but they haven't got
any finesse.'' No. He was going to be an Eathorne; delicately
rigorous, coldly powerful.
"That's the stuff. The wallop in the velvet mitt. Not let
anybody get fresh with you. Been getting careless about my
diction. Slang. Colloquial. Cut it out. I was first-rate at
rhetoric in college. Themes on— Anyway, not bad. Had
too much of this hooptedoodle and good-fellow stuff. I—
Why couldn't I organize a bank of my own some day? And
Ted succeed me!''
He drove happily home, and to Mrs. Babbitt he was a William
Washington Eathorne, but she did not notice it.
