Babbit (28 page)

  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.