“I might” as though it didn’t mean anything in particular, and he smiled.
Babbitt liked that smile, and hunted for conversation:
“Saw a bang-up cabaret in New York: the
‘Good-Morning Cutie’ bunch at the Hotel Minton.”
“Yes, they’re pretty girls.
I danced there one evening.”
“Oh. Like dancing?”
“Naturally.
I like dancing and pretty women and good food better than anything else in the world.
Most men do.”
“But gosh, Doane, I thought you fellows wanted to take all the good eats and everything away from us.”
“No.
Not at all.
What I’d like to see is the meetings of the Garment Workers held at the Ritz, with a dance afterward.
Isn’t that reasonable?”
“Yuh, might be good idea, all right.
Well—Shame I haven’t seen more of you, recent years.
Oh, say, hope you haven’t held it against me, my bucking you as mayor, going on the stump for Prout.
You see, I’m an organization Republican, and I kind of felt—”
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t fight me.
I have no doubt you’re good for the Organization.
I remember—in college you were an unusually liberal, sensitive chap.
I can still recall your saying to me that you were going to be a lawyer, and take the cases of the poor for nothing, and fight the rich.
And I remember I said I was going to be one of the rich myself, and buy paintings and live at Newport.
I’m sure you inspired us all.”
“Well.... Well.... I’ve always aimed to be liberal.”
Babbitt was enormously shy and proud and self-conscious; he tried to look like the boy he had been a quarter-century ago, and he shone upon his old friend Seneca Doane as he rumbled,
“Trouble with a lot of these fellows, even the live wires and some of ‘em that think they’re forward-looking, is they aren’t broad-minded and liberal.
Now, I always believe in giving the other fellow a chance, and listening to his ideas.”
“That’s fine.”
“Tell you how I figure it: A little opposition is good for all of us, so a fellow, especially if he’s a business man and engaged in doing the work of the world, ought to be liberal.”
“Yes—”
“I always say a fellow ought to have Vision and Ideals.
I guess some of the fellows in my business think I’m pretty visionary, but I just let ‘em think what they want to and go right on—same as you do.... By golly, this is nice to have a chance to sit and visit and kind of, you might say, brush up on our ideals.”
“But of course we visionaries do rather get beaten.
Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Not a bit!
Nobody can dictate to me what I think!”
“You’re the man I want to help me.
I want you to talk to some of the business men and try to make them a little more liberal in their attitude toward poor Beecher Ingram.”
“Ingram?
But, why, he’s this nut preacher that got kicked out of the Congregationalist Church, isn’t he, and preaches free love and sedition?”
This, Doane explained, was indeed the general conception of Beecher Ingram, but he himself saw Beecher Ingram as a priest of the brotherhood of man, of which Babbitt was notoriously an upholder.
So would Babbitt keep his acquaintances from hounding Ingram and his forlorn little church?
“You bet!
I’ll call down any of the boys I hear getting funny about Ingram,” Babbitt said affectionately to his dear friend Doane.
Doane warmed up and became reminiscent.
He spoke of student days in Germany, of lobbying for single tax in Washington, of international labor conferences.
He mentioned his friends, Lord Wycombe, Colonel Wedgwood, Professor Piccoli.
Babbitt had always supposed that Doane associated only with the I. W. W., but now he nodded gravely, as one who knew Lord Wycombes by the score, and he got in two references to Sir Gerald Doak.