Babbit (10 page)

  "Why not? Though I've never discovered anybody that
knew what the deuce Man really was made for!"

  "Well we know - not just in the Bible alone, but it
stands to reason - a man who doesn't buckle down and do his duty,
even if it does bore him sometimes, is nothing but a - well, he's
simply a weakling. Mollycoddle, in fact! And what do you advocate?
Come down to cases! If a man is bored by his wife, do you seriously
mean he has a right to chuck her and take a sneak, or even kill
himself?"

  "Good Lord, I don't know what 'rights' a man has!
And I don't know the solution of boredom. If I did, I'd be the one
philosopher that had the cure for living. But I do know that about
ten times as many people find their lives dull, and unnecessarily
dull, as ever admit it; and I do believe that if we busted out and
admitted it sometimes, instead of being nice and patient and loyal
for sixty years, and then nice and patient and dead for the rest of
eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we might make life more fun."

  They drifted into a maze of speculation. Babbitt was
elephantishly uneasy. Paul was bold, but not quite sure about what
he was being bold. Now and then Babbitt suddenly agreed with Paul
in an admission which contradicted all his defense of duty and
Christian patience, and at each admission he had a curious reckless
joy. He said at last:

  "Look here, old Paul, you do a lot of talking about
kicking things in the face, but you never kick. Why don't you?"

  "Nobody does. Habit too strong. But - Georgie, I've
been thinking of one mild bat - oh, don't worry, old pillar of
monogamy; it's highly proper. It seems to be settled now, isn't it
- though of course Zilla keeps rooting for a nice expensive
vacation in New York and Atlantic City, with the bright lights and
the bootlegged cocktails and a bunch of lounge-lizards to dance
with - but the Babbitts and the Rieslings are sure-enough going to
Lake Sunasquam, aren't we? Why couldn't you and I make some excuse
- say business in New York - and get up to Maine four or five days
before they do, and just loaf by ourselves and smoke and cuss and
be natural?"

  "Great! Great idea!" Babbitt admired.

  Not for fourteen years had he taken a holiday
without his wife, and neither of them quite believed they could
commit this audacity. Many members of the Athletic Club did go
camping without their wives, but they were officially dedicated to
fishing and hunting, whereas the sacred and unchangeable sports of
Babbitt and Paul Riesling were golfing, motoring, and bridge. For
either the fishermen or the golfers to have changed their habits
would have been an infraction of their self-imposed discipline
which would have shocked all right-thinking and regularized
citizens.

  Babbitt blustered, "Why don't we just put our foot
down and say, 'We're going on ahead of you, and that's all there is
to it!' Nothing criminal in it. Simply say to Zilla - "

  "You don't say anything to Zilla simply. Why,
Georgie, she's almost as much of a moralist as you are, and if I
told her the truth she'd believe we were going to meet some dames
in New York. And even Myra - she never nags you, the way Zilla
does, but she'd worry. She'd say, 'Don't you WANT me to go to Maine
with you? I shouldn't dream of going unless you wanted me;' and
you'd give in to save her feelings. Oh, the devil! Let's have a
shot at duck-pins."

  During the game of duck-pins, a juvenile form of
bowling, Paul was silent. As they came down the steps of the club,
not more than half an hour after the time at which Babbitt had
sternly told Miss McGoun he would be back, Paul sighed, "Look here,
old man, oughtn't to talked about Zilla way I did."

  "Rats, old man, it lets off steam."

  "Oh, I know! After spending all noon sneering at the
conventional stuff, I'm conventional enough to be ashamed of saving
my life by busting out with my fool troubles!"

  "Old Paul, your nerves are kind of on the bum. I'm
going to take you away. I'm going to rig this thing. I'm going to
have an important deal in New York and - and sure, of course! -
I'll need you to advise me on the roof of the building! And the ole
deal will fall through, and there'll be nothing for us but to go on
ahead to Maine. I - Paul, when it comes right down to it, I don't
care whether you bust loose or not. I do like having a rep for
being one of the Bunch, but if you ever needed me I'd chuck it and
come out for you every time! Not of course but what you're - course
I don't mean you'd ever do anything that would put - that would put
a decent position on the fritz but - See how I mean? I'm kind of a
clumsy old codger, and I need your fine Eyetalian hand. We - Oh,
hell, I can't stand here gassing all day! On the job! S' long!
Don't take any wooden money, Paulibus! See you soon! S' long!"

  I

  
H
E forgot Paul
Riesling in an afternoon of not unagreeable details. After a return
to his office, which seemed to have staggered on without him, he
drove a "prospect" out to view a four-flat tenement in the Linton
district. He was inspired by the customer's admiration of the new
cigar-lighter. Thrice its novelty made him use it, and thrice he
hurled half-smoked cigarettes from the car, protesting, "I GOT to
quit smoking so blame much!"

  Their ample discussion of every detail of the
cigar-lighter led them to speak of electric flat-irons and
bed-warmers. Babbitt apologized for being so shabbily old-fashioned
as still to use a hot-water bottle, and he announced that he would
have the sleeping-porch wired at once. He had enormous and poetic
admiration, though very little understanding, of all mechanical
devices. They were his symbols of truth and beauty. Regarding each
new intricate mechanism - metal lathe, two-jet carburetor, machine
gun, oxyacetylene welder - he learned one good realistic-sounding
phrase, and used it over and over, with a delightful feeling of
being technical and initiated.

  The customer joined him in the worship of machinery,
and they came buoyantly up to the tenement and began that
examination of plastic slate roof, kalamein doors, and
seven-eighths-inch blind-nailed flooring, began those diplomacies
of hurt surprise and readiness to be persuaded to do something they
had already decided to do, which would some day result in a
sale.

  On the way back Babbitt picked up his partner and
father-in-law, Henry T. Thompson, at his kitchen-cabinet works, and
they drove through South Zenith, a high-colored, banging, exciting
region: new factories of hollow tile with gigantic wire-glass
windows, surly old red-brick factories stained with tar,
high-perched water-tanks, big red trucks like locomotives, and, on
a score of hectic side-tracks, far-wandering freight-cars from the
New York Central and apple orchards, the Great Northern and
wheat-plateaus, the Southern Pacific and orange groves.

  They talked to the secretary of the Zenith Foundry
Company about an interesting artistic project - a cast-iron fence
for Linden Lane Cemetery. They drove on to the Zeeco Motor Company
and interviewed the sales-manager, Noel Ryland, about a discount on
a Zeeco car for Thompson. Babbitt and Ryland were fellow-members of
the Boosters' Club, and no Booster felt right if he bought anything
from another Booster without receiving a discount. But Henry
Thompson growled, "Oh, t' hell with 'em! I'm not going to crawl
around mooching discounts, not from nobody." It was one of the
differences between Thompson, the old-fashioned, lean Yankee,
rugged, traditional, stage type of American business man, and
Babbitt, the plump, smooth, efficient, up-to-the-minute and
otherwise perfected modern. Whenever Thompson twanged, "Put your
John Hancock on that line," Babbitt was as much amused by the
antiquated provincialism as any proper Englishman by any American.
He knew himself to be of a breeding altogether more esthetic and
sensitive than Thompson's. He was a college graduate, he played
golf, he often smoked cigarettes instead of cigars, and when he
went to Chicago he took a room with a private bath. "The whole
thing is," he explained to Paul Riesling, "these old codgers lack
the subtlety that you got to have to-day."

  This advance in civilization could be carried too
far, Babbitt perceived. Noel Ryland, sales-manager of the Zeeco,
was a frivolous graduate of Princeton, while Babbitt was a sound
and standard ware from that great department-store, the State
University. Ryland wore spats, he wrote long letters about City
Planning and Community Singing, and, though he was a Booster, he
was known to carry in his pocket small volumes of poetry in a
foreign language. All this was going too far. Henry Thompson was
the extreme of insularity, and Noel Ryland the extreme of
frothiness, while between them, supporting the state, defending the
evangelical churches and domestic brightness and sound business,
were Babbitt and his friends.

  With this just estimate of himself - and with the
promise of a discount on Thompson's car - he returned to his office
in triumph.

  But as he went through the corridor of the Reeves
Building he sighed, "Poor old Paul! I got to - Oh, damn Noel
Ryland! Damn Charley McKelvey! Just because they make more money
than I do, they think they're so superior. I wouldn't be found dead
in their stuffy old Union Club! I - Somehow, to-day, I don't feel
like going back to work. Oh well - "

  II

  He answered telephone calls, he read the four
o'clock mail, he signed his morning's letters, he talked to a
tenant about repairs, he fought with Stanley Graff.

  Young Graff, the outside salesman, was always
hinting that he deserved an increase of commission, and to-day he
complained, "I think I ought to get a bonus if I put through the
Heiler sale. I'm chasing around and working on it every single
evening, almost."

  Babbitt frequently remarked to his wife that it was
better to "con your office-help along and keep 'em happy 'stead of
jumping on 'em and poking 'em up - get more work out of 'em that
way," but this unexampled lack of appreciation hurt him, and he
turned on Graff:

  "Look here, Stan; let's get this clear. You've got
an idea somehow that it's you that do all the selling. Where d' you
get that stuff? Where d' you think you'd be if it wasn't for our
capital behind you, and our lists of properties, and all the
prospects we find for you? All you got to do is follow up our tips
and close the deal. The hall-porter could sell Babbitt-Thompson
listings! You say you're engaged to a girl, but have to put in your
evenings chasing after buyers. Well, why the devil shouldn't you?
What do you want to do? Sit around holding her hand? Let me tell
you, Stan, if your girl is worth her salt, she'll be glad to know
you're out hustling, making some money to furnish the home-nest,
instead of doing the lovey-dovey. The kind of fellow that kicks
about working overtime, that wants to spend his evenings reading
trashy novels or spooning and exchanging a lot of nonsense and
foolishness with some girl, he ain't the kind of upstanding,
energetic young man, with a future - and with Vision! - that we
want here. How about it? What's your Ideal, anyway? Do you want to
make money and be a responsible member of the community, or do you
want to be a loafer, with no Inspiration or Pep?"

  Graff was not so amenable to Vision and Ideals as
usual. "You bet I want to make money! That's why I want that bonus!
Honest, Mr. Babbitt, I don't want to get fresh, but this Heiler
house is a terror. Nobody'll fall for it. The flooring is rotten
and the walls are full of cracks"

  "That's exactly what I mean! To a salesman with a
love for his profession, it's hard problems like that that inspire
him to do his best. Besides, Stan - Matter o' fact, Thompson and I
are against bonuses, as a matter of principle. We like you, and we
want to help you so you can get married, but we can't be unfair to
the others on the staff. If we start giving you bonuses, don't you
see we're going to hurt the feeling and be unjust to Penniman and
Laylock? Right's right, and discrimination is unfair, and there
ain't going to be any of it in this office! Don't get the idea,
Stan, that because during the war salesmen were hard to hire, now,
when there's a lot of men out of work, there aren't a slew of
bright young fellows that would be glad to step in and enjoy your
opportunities, and not act as if Thompson and I were his enemies
and not do any work except for bonuses. How about it, heh? How
about it?"