Babbitt

his motor car was poetry and tragedy, love and heroism. The offi

e was the long, anxious whirr of the starter; and sometimes he had to drip ether into the cocks of the cylinders, which was

strong, and the car didn't even brush the door-jamb, gouged and splintery with many bruisings by fenders, as he backe

ox with a squat tower, a broad porch, and glossy paint yellow as a yolk. Babbitt disapproved of Mr. and Mrs. Doppelbrau as "Bohemian." From their house came midnight music and obscene laughter; there were neighborhood rumors of bootlegged whisky and fast motor rides. They furnished Babbitt with many

ublicity-counsel of the Zenith Street Traction Company. He could, on ten hours' notice, appear before the board of aldermen or the state legislature and prove, absolutely, with figures all in rows and with precedents from Poland and New Zealand, that the street-car company loved the Public and yearned over its employees; that all its stock was owned by Widows and Orphans; and that whatever it desired to do would benefit property-owners by increasing rental values, and help the poor by lowering r

ican as George F. Babbitt. He confirmed the business men in the faith. Where they knew only by passionate instinct that their system of indu

th Eunice Littlefield. At sixteen Eunice was interested in no statistics save those regarding the ages a

face was wrinkled with meaningless laughter. But Littlefield was old for a man of forty-two. He was tall, broad, thick; his gold-rimmed spectacles were engulfed in the folds of his long face; his hair was a tossed mass of greasy blackness; he puffed

curb and the broad cement sidewalk. Babbitt stopped his car and leaned out to shout

t, lighting-illegally early

ty fine morning,"

ming along

ing now, all right,

to have a couple blankets, on

too warm last nigh

e we'll have any more

member the blizzard they had out West three days ago-thirty inches of snow at Greeley, Color

ublican candidate? Who'll they nominate for president? Don't y

is a good, sound, business-like conduct of its affairs. Wh

eges and so on, and I'm glad you feel that way. What the country needs-just at this present juncture-is neither a college president nor a lot of monk

na the schoolmen are giving way to more practical

ings were going in the world. "Well, it's been nice to stop and parleyvoo a second. Guess I'll have to

d been a wilderness of rank second-growth elms and oaks and maples. Along the precise streets were still a few wooded vacant lots, and the fragment of an old orchard. It w

frameless spectacles, smoking a large cigar, driving a good motor along a semi-suburban parkway. But in him was some genius of authentic love for his neighborhood, his city, his clan. The winter was over; the time was

ndliness with which Sylvester Moon, dirtiest and most skilled of motor mechanics, came out to serve him. "Mornin', Mr. Babbitt!" said Moon, and Babbitt felt himself a person of importance, one whose name even busy garagemen remembered-not one of these cheap-sports flying around in flivvers. He admir

dependence of the great specialist, the friendliness of a familiar gossip,

l 'e

for Republican cand

e almost three weeks-well, there's more than six weeks in all before the Republican convention, and I feel a fellow oug

fact, Mr

ll be my stand four years from now-yes, and eight years from now! What I tell everybody, and it can't be too ge

y, that'

front tires

k for garages if everybody looked

was with the manner of a Good Samaritan that he shouted at a respectable-looking man who was waiting for a trolley car, "Have a lift?" As the man climbed in Babbitt con

f generosity, hardly. Fact, I always feel-I was saying to my son just the other night-it's a fellow's duty to share the good things of this wor

e to find the right ans

run the Portland Road cars once every seven minutes. Fellow gets mighty cold on

't care a damn what kind of a deal they g

rating under, like these cranks that want municipal ownership. The way these workmen hold up the Company for high wages is simply a crime, and

-" un

abbitt explained. "Spr

s real sp

beating trolley cars to the corner: a spurt, a tail-chase, nervous speeding between the huge yellow side of th

lients and the vexing To Rent signs of rival brokers. To-day, in mysterious malaise, he raged or rejoiced w

ies patched with corrugated iron and stolen doors. Billboards with crimson goddesses nine feet tall advertising cinema films, pipe tobacco, and talcum powder. The old "mansions" along Ninth Street, S. E., like aged dandies in filthy linen; wooden castles turned into boarding-houses, with muddy walks and rusty hedges, jostled by fast-intruding garages, cheap apartment-h

unselfish lover of Zenith. He thought of the outlying factory suburbs; of the Chaloosa River with its strangely eroded banks; of the orchard-dappled Tonawanda Hi

and Babbitt slowed up, holding out his hand to the cars pressing on him from behind, agitatedly motioning an old woman to go ahead, avoiding a truck which bore down on him from one side. With front wheels nicking the wrought-steel bumper of the car in front, he stopped, feverishly cramped his steering-wheel, slid back

s of lawyers, doctors, agents for machinery, for emery wheels, for wire fencing, for mining-stock. Their gold signs shone on the windows. The entrance was too modern to be flamboyant with pilla

, but it made him feel an insider to go through the corridor of the bui

n a constricted valley, interested only in one another and in The Building. Their Main Street was the entrance hall, with its stone floor, severe marble ceiling, and the inner windows of the shops. The liveliest place on the street was the Reeves Buildin

ns by the villagers, he marched into his office, and peace and d

eard again,

hich disciplines clients: "Say, uh, I think I got just the house that would suit you-the Percival House,

k and frosted glass, at the back of the office, he reflected how hard it w

general utility man, collector of rents and salesman of insurance-broken, silent, gray; a mystery, reputed to have been a "crack" real-estate man with a firm of his own in haughty Brooklyn; Chester Kirby Laylock, resident salesman out at the Glen Oriole acreage

oun's a good stenog., smart's a whip, but Stan Graff and all those bums

and the air of bustle; but to-day it seemed flat-the tiled floor, like a bathroom, the ocher-colored metal ceiling, the faded maps on the hard plaster walls, the

ygienic), a drip-less non-clogging sanitary faucet, and machine-painted decorations in two tones of gold. He looked down the relentless stretch of tiled floor at the water-cooler, and assured himself that no tenant of the Reeves Building had a more expensive one, but he could not recap

; he shouted "Msgoun," which meant

n version of hi

ly lose the Allen sale, I had Allen up on carpet day before yesterday and got right down to cases and think I can assure you-uh, uh, no, change that: all my experience indicates he is all right, me

ing him to pay for title insurance, so now for heaven's sake let's get busy-no, make that: so now let's go to it and get dow

ter which he received, typed,

HOMPSON R

for

Oberlin Avenue

ni

, 376 North Americ

Mr. G

just naturally lose the Allen sale. I had Allen up on the carpet day before yesterday, and got right down to cases.

ial assessment and there will be no difficul

GO! Yours

nd clear's a bell. Now what the-I never told McGoun to make a third paragraph there! Wish she'd quit trying to improve on my di

f the best literary models of the day; of heart-to-heart-talk advertisements, "sales-pulling" letters, discourses on the "development of Will-power," and hand-shaking hous

ang up the old bonnet but a love-nest for the wife and kiddies-and maybe for the flivver out beyant (be sure and spell that b-e-y-a-n-t, Miss McGoun) the spud g

hopping down your lane with the good tidings, and if we can't, we won't bother you. To save your time, just fill out the blank enclosed. On req

for se

we can pick for you-some genuin

dandy shade tree, swell neighborhood, handy car line. $3700, $780

k trim, parquet floors, lovely gas log, big porches, co

irl, of black bobbed hair against demure cheeks. A longing which was indistinguishable from loneliness enfeebled him. While she waited, tapping a long, precise pencil-point on the desk-tablet, he half identified her with the fairy girl of

He often reflected, "Nev' forget how old Jake Offutt said a wise bird never g

ured them; but not once had he hazarded respectability by adventuring. Now, as he calculated the cost of repapering the Styles hou