“Hey, leggo, quit crushing me cootie-garage,” he did not quite know how to go on.
They sat in the back room of a saloon, and Babbitt had a headache, was confused by their new slang, looked at them benevolently, wanted to go home, and had a drink—a good many drinks.
Two evenings after, Fulton Bemis, the surly older man of the Bunch, took Babbitt aside and grunted,
“Look here, it’s none of my business, and God knows I always lap up my share of the hootch, but don’t you think you better watch yourself?
You’re one of these enthusiastic chumps that always overdo things.
D’ you realize you’re throwing in the booze as fast as you can, and you eat one cigarette right after another?
Better cut it out for a while.”
Babbitt tearfully said that good old Fult was a prince, and yes, he certainly would cut it out, and thereafter he lighted a cigarette and took a drink and had a terrific quarrel with Tanis when she caught him being affectionate with Carrie Nork.
Next morning he hated himself that he should have sunk into a position where a fifteenth-rater like Fulton Bemis could rebuke him.
He perceived that, since he was making love to every woman possible, Tanis was no longer his one pure star, and he wondered whether she had ever been anything more to him than A Woman.
And if Bemis had spoken to him, were other people talking about him?
He suspiciously watched the men at the Athletic Club that noon.
It seemed to him that they were uneasy.
They had been talking about him then?
He was angry.
He became belligerent.
He not only defended Seneca Doane but even made fun of the Y. M. C. A.
Vergil Gunch was rather brief in his answers.
Afterward Babbitt was not angry.
He was afraid.
He did not go to the next lunch of the Boosters’ Club but hid in a cheap restaurant, and, while he munched a ham-and-egg sandwich and sipped coffee from a cup on the arm of his chair, he worried.
Four days later, when the Bunch were having one of their best parties, Babbitt drove them to the skating-rink which had been laid out on the Chaloosa River.
After a thaw the streets had frozen in smooth ice.
Down those wide endless streets the wind rattled between the rows of wooden houses, and the whole Bellevue district seemed a frontier town.
Even with skid chains on all four wheels, Babbitt was afraid of sliding, and when he came to the long slide of a hill he crawled down, both brakes on.
Slewing round a corner came a less cautious car.
It skidded, it almost raked them with its rear fenders.
In relief at their escape the Bunch—Tanis, Minnie Sonntag, Pete, Fulton Bemis—shouted
“Oh, baby,” and waved their hands to the agitated other driver.
Then Babbitt saw Professor Pumphrey laboriously crawling up hill, afoot, Staring owlishly at the revelers.
He was sure that Pumphrey recognized him and saw Tanis kiss him as she crowed,
“You’re such a good driver!”
At lunch next day he probed Pumphrey with
“Out last night with my brother and some friends of his.
Gosh, what driving!
Slippery ‘s glass.
Thought I saw you hiking up the Bellevue Avenue Hill.”
“No, I wasn’t—I didn’t see you,” said Pumphrey, hastily, rather guiltily.
Perhaps two days afterward Babbitt took Tanis to lunch at the Hotel Thornleigh.
She who had seemed well content to wait for him at her flat had begun to hint with melancholy smiles that he must think but little of her if he never introduced her to his friends, if he was unwilling to be seen with her except at the movies.
He thought of taking her to the “ladies’ annex” of the Athletic Club, but that was too dangerous.
He would have to introduce her and, oh, people might misunderstand and—He compromised on the Thornleigh.
She was unusually smart, all in black: small black tricorne hat, short black caracul coat, loose and swinging, and austere high-necked black velvet frock at a time when most street costumes were like evening gowns.
Perhaps she was too smart.
Every one in the gold and oak restaurant of the Thornleigh was staring at her as Babbitt followed her to a table.
He uneasily hoped that the head-waiter would give them a discreet place behind a pillar, but they were stationed on the center aisle.
Tanis seemed not to notice her admirers; she smiled at Babbitt with a lavish
“Oh, isn’t this nice!
What a peppy-looking orchestra!”
Babbitt had difficulty in being lavish in return, for two tables away he saw Vergil Gunch.