Babbitt

his wife sighed, laid away her darning, and looked enviously at t

hairs, but the other chairs were new, very deep and restful, upholstered in blue and gold-striped velvet. A blue velvet davenport faced the fireplace, and behind it was a cherrywood table and a tall piano-lamp with a

ox containing cigarette-crumbs, and three "gift-books"-large, expensive editions of f

cabinet Victrola. (Eight out of every nine Fl

rality Babbitt had always been rather suspicious, and a "hand-colored" photograph of a Colonial room-rag rug, maiden spinning, cat demure before a white fireplace. (Nineteen out of every

as interesting, there was nothing that was offensive. It was as neat, and as negative, as a block of artificial ice. The fireplace was unsoftened by downy ashes or by

ade them feel wealthy and cultured; and all they knew of creating music was the nice adjustment of a bamboo needle. The books on the table were unspotted and laid in ri

hen it did not hold him he coughed, scratched his ankles and his right ear, thrust his left thumb into his vest pocket, jingled his silver, whirled the cigar-cutter and the keys on one end of his watch chain, yawned, rubbed h

," he enlightened Mrs. Babbitt, for q

t's

Nature's be

s,

hey never have sense enou

ll,

ng and eating

ding. "Did you have a light lunch to

didn't have much chance to diet. Oh, you needn't to grin like a chessy cat! If it wasn't for me watching out and ke

le he piously sliced and gulpe

e done: cut do

'll stand for a good deal, but once in a while I got to assert my authority, a

a day. Makes yo

ed grateful as he droned, "How about going to bed, eh? Don't suppose Rone and Ted will be in till all hours. Ye

enjoy that,

he morning, he sighed a little, heavy with a lonely feeling which perplexed and frightened him. So absent-minded was he that he could not remember which window-catches he had inspected, and through the dar

I

went to bed early, and thriftily got ahead in those dismal duties. It was his luxurious custom to shave while sitting snugly in a tubful of hot water. He may be viewed to-night as a plump, smooth, pink, baldish, podgy goodman, robbed of th

the clear water trembled. Babbitt lazily watched it; noted that along the silhouette of his legs against the radiance on the bottom of the tub, the shadows of the air-bubbles clinging to the hairs were r

ty drip drip drip. He was enchanted by it. He looked at the solid tub, the beautiful nick

ied the scratchy nail-brush with "Oh, you would, would you!" He soaped himself, and rinsed himself, and austerely rubbed himself; he noted

ound in traffic-driving, when he laid out a clean collar, discovered that

the preparation of his b

-porch because of the fresh air or because it w

cided in little smoky rooms in Washington what he should think about disarmament, tariff, and Germany, so did the large national advertisers fix the surface of his life, fix what he believed to be his individuality.

ial and social success was more significant t

e maid hadn't tucked in the blankets had to be discussed with Mrs. Babbitt.) The rag rug was adjusted so that his bare feet would strike it whe

virile power. But there was yet need of courage. As he sank into sleep, just at the first exquisite relaxation, the Doppelbrau car came home. He bounced into wakefulness, lamenting, "Why the devil

for the climb up into the garage and raced once more, explosively, before it was shut off. A final opening and slamming of the car door. Silence then, a horrible silence fill

y an eminent English novelist. Updike was Zenith's professional bachelor; a slim-waisted man of forty-six with an effeminate voice and taste in flowers, cretonnes,

an idiot!"

mind a

t's what

olo, and the Ming platter he had found in Vancouver. She promised to meet him in Deauville, the coming summer,

rohibition was now in force, and since Zenith was notoriously law-abiding, they were compelled to keep the cocktails innocent by drinking them out

. For thirty-seven hours now they had been working on

thin a hundred miles of the city should strike. Of these men one resembled a testy and prosperous grocer, one a Yankee ca

enith, was primitive as the backwoods. He had never ridden in a motor car, never seen a bath-tub, never read any book save the Bible, McGuffey's readers,

ight shift to fill an order of tractors for the Polish army. It hummed like a million bees, glared through its wide windows li

ebrated vocabulary, and his stage-presence. The service of the Lord had been more profitable. He was about to retire with a fortune. It had been well earned, for, to quote his last report, "Rev. Mr. Monday, the Prophet with a Punch, has shown that he is the world's greatest

position from certain Episcopalian and Congregationalist ministers, those renegades whom Mr. Monday so finely called "a bunch of gospel-pushers with dish-water instead of blood, a gang of squealers that need more dust on the knees of their pants and more hair on their skinny old chests." This o

ounty Fair Grounds a Mike Monday Tabernacle had been erected, to seat fifteen

y mouths and yip that Mike Monday is vulgar and full of mush. Those pups are saying now that I hog the gospel-show, that I'm in it for the coin. Well, now listen, folks! I'm going to give those birds a chance! They can stand right up here and tell me to my face that I'm a galoot and a liar and a hick! Only if they do-if they do!-don't faint with surprise if some of those rum-dumm liars get one good swift poke from Mike, with all the kick of God's Flaming Righteousness behind the wallop! Well, come o

ist (whose report on the destruction of epithelial cells under radium had made the

gantic buildings, gigantic machines, gi

life. It is one big railroad station-with all the people taki

and, with every house that can afford it having the same muffins at the same tea-hour, and every retired general going to exactly the same evensong at the same gray stone church with a square tower, and e

r once in London I saw a picture of an American suburb, in a toothpaste ad on the back of the Saturday Evening Post-an elm-lined snowy street of these new houses, Georgian some of 'em, or with low raking roofs and-The kind of str

kind, industrious Family Men who use every known brand of trickery and cruelty to insure the prosperity of their cubs. The worst thing about these fel

hat Zenith is a better place to live in than Man

lift in most of them,

city with a future so unknown that it excites

aven't the slightest idea what you want. I, being a revolution

how long we can keep it up, Hank? We're safe as long as the good little boys like George Babbitt and all the nice respectable labor-leaders think you and me are rugged patriots. There's swell pickings for an honest politician here, Hank: a whole city working to provide cigars and fried chicken and dry martinis for us, and rallying to our banner with indignation, oh, fierce indignation,

e asleep, a vast unpenetrated shadow. In the slum beyond the railroad tracks, a young m

s finishing a rondeau to show how diverting was life amid the feuds of

ed-the last turn, signifying that he'd had enough of this wo

the paths of a midnight garden, and at the gate the fairy child was waiting. Her dear and tranquil hand caressed his chee