Women?”
“No, practically, you might say, practically not at all.”
“Don’t hesitate to tell me, brother!
That’s what I’m here for.
Been going on joy-rides?
Squeezing girls in cars?”
The reverend eyes glistened.
“No—no—”
“Well, I’ll tell you.
I’ve got a deputation from the Don’t Make Prohibition a Joke Association coming to see me in a quarter of an hour, and one from the Anti-Birth-Control Union at a quarter of ten.”
He busily glanced at his watch.
“But I can take five minutes off and pray with you.
Kneel right down by your chair, brother.
Don’t be ashamed to seek the guidance of God.”
Babbitt’s scalp itched and he longed to flee, but Dr. Drew had already flopped down beside his desk-chair and his voice had changed from rasping efficiency to an unctuous familiarity with sin and with the Almighty.
Babbitt also knelt, while Drew gloated:
“O Lord, thou seest our brother here, who has been led astray by manifold temptations.
O Heavenly Father, make his heart to be pure, as pure as a little child’s.
Oh, let him know again the joy of a manly courage to abstain from evil—”
Sheldon Smeeth came frolicking into the study.
At the sight of the two men he smirked, forgivingly patted Babbitt on the shoulder, and knelt beside him, his arm about him, while he authorized Dr. Drew’s imprecations with moans of
“Yes, Lord!
Help our brother, Lord!”
Though he was trying to keep his eyes closed, Babbitt squinted between his fingers and saw the pastor glance at his watch as he concluded with a triumphant,
“And let him never be afraid to come to Us for counsel and tender care, and let him know that the church can lead him as a little lamb.”
Dr. Drew sprang up, rolled his eyes in the general direction of Heaven, chucked his watch into his pocket, and demanded,
“Has the deputation come yet, Sheldy?”
“Yep, right outside,” Sheldy answered, with equal liveliness; then, caressingly, to Babbitt, “Brother, if it would help, I’d love to go into the next room and pray with you while Dr. Drew is receiving the brothers from the Don’t Make Prohibition a Joke Association.”
“No—no thanks—can’t take the time!” yelped Babbitt, rushing toward the door.
Thereafter he was often seen at the Chatham Road Presbyterian Church, but it is recorded that he avoided shaking hands with the pastor at the door. III
If his moral fiber had been so weakened by rebellion that he was not quite dependable in the more rigorous campaigns of the Good Citizens’ League nor quite appreciative of the church, yet there was no doubt of the joy with which Babbitt returned to the pleasures of his home and of the Athletic Club, the Boosters, the Elks.
Verona and Kenneth Escott were eventually and hesitatingly married.
For the wedding Babbitt was dressed as carefully as was Verona; he was crammed into the morning-coat he wore to teas thrice a year; and with a certain relief, after Verona and Kenneth had driven away in a limousine, he returned to the house, removed the morning coat, sat with his aching feet up on the davenport, and reflected that his wife and he could have the living-room to themselves now, and not have to listen to Verona and Kenneth worrying, in a cultured collegiate manner, about minimum wages and the Drama League.
But even this sinking into peace was less consoling than his return to being one of the best-loved men in the Boosters’ Club. IV
President Willis Ijams began that Boosters’ Club luncheon by standing quiet and staring at them so unhappily that they feared he was about to announce the death of a Brother Booster.
He spoke slowly then, and gravely:
“Boys, I have something shocking to reveal to you; something terrible about one of our own members.”
Several Boosters, including Babbitt, looked disconcerted.
“A knight of the grip, a trusted friend of mine, recently made a trip up-state, and in a certain town, where a certain Booster spent his boyhood, he found out something which can no longer be concealed.
In fact, he discovered the inward nature of a man whom we have accepted as a Real Guy and as one of us.
Gentlemen, I cannot trust my voice to say it, so I have written it down.”
He uncovered a large blackboard and on it, in huge capitals, was the legend:
George Follansbee Babbitt—oh you Folly!
The Boosters cheered, they laughed, they wept, they threw rolls at Babbitt, they cried,
“Speech, speech!
Oh you Folly!”
President Ijams continued:
“That, gentlemen, is the awful thing Georgie Babbitt has been concealing all these years, when we thought he was just plain George F.
Now I want you to tell us, taking it in turn, what you’ve always supposed the F. stood for.”
Flivver, they suggested, and Frog-face and Flathead and Farinaceous and Freezone and Flapdoodle and Foghorn.