He grunted.
He wrinkled the newspaper.
He protested:
“Can you beat it!
I’m willing to hand a lot of credit to Charley McKelvey.
When we were in college together, he was just as hard up as any of us, and he’s made a million good bucks out of contracting and hasn’t been any dishonester or bought any more city councils than was necessary.
And that’s a good house of his—though it ain’t any ‘mighty stone walls’ and it ain’t worth the ninety thousand it cost him.
But when it comes to talking as though Charley McKelvey and all that booze-hoisting set of his are any blooming bunch of of, of Vanderbilts, why, it makes me tired!”
Timidly from Mrs. Babbitt: “I would like to see the inside of their house though.
It must be lovely.
I’ve never been inside.”
“Well, I have! Lots of—couple of times.
To see Chaz about business deals, in the evening.
It’s not so much.
I wouldn’t WANT to go there to dinner with that gang of, of high-binders.
And I’ll bet I make a whole lot more money than some of those tin-horns that spend all they got on dress-suits and haven’t got a decent suit of underwear to their name!
Hey!
What do you think of this!”
Mrs. Babbitt was strangely unmoved by the tidings from the Real Estate and Building column of the Advocate-Times:
Ashtabula Street, 496—J.
K. Dawson to Thomas Mullally, April 17, 15.7 X 112.2,
mtg. $4000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nom
And this morning Babbitt was too disquieted to entertain her with items from Mechanics’ Liens, Mortgages Recorded, and Contracts Awarded.
He rose.
As he looked at her his eyebrows seemed shaggier than usual.
Suddenly: “Yes, maybe—Kind of shame to not keep in touch with folks like the McKelveys.
We might try inviting them to dinner, some evening.
Oh, thunder, let’s not waste our good time thinking about ‘em!
Our little bunch has a lot liver times than all those plutes.
Just compare a real human like you with these neurotic birds like Lucile McKelvey—all highbrow talk and dressed up like a plush horse!
You’re a great old girl, hon.!”
He covered his betrayal of softness with a complaining:
“Say, don’t let Tinka go and eat any more of that poison nutfudge.
For Heaven’s sake, try to keep her from ruining her digestion.
I tell you, most folks don’t appreciate how important it is to have a good digestion and regular habits.
Be back ‘bout usual time, I guess.”
He kissed her—he didn’t quite kiss her—he laid unmoving lips against her unflushing cheek.
He hurried out to the garage, muttering:
“Lord, what a family!
And now Myra is going to get pathetic on me because we don’t train with this millionaire outfit.
Oh, Lord, sometimes I’d like to quit the whole game.
And the office worry and detail just as bad.
And I act cranky and—I don’t mean to, but I get—So darn tired!”
CHAPTER III
To George F. Babbitt, as to most prosperous citizens of Zenith, his motor car was poetry and tragedy, love and heroism.
The office was his pirate ship but the car his perilous excursion ashore.
Among the tremendous crises of each day none was more dramatic than starting the engine.
It was slow on cold mornings; there was the long, anxious whirr of the starter; and sometimes he had to drip ether into the cocks of the cylinders, which was so very interesting that at lunch he would chronicle it drop by drop, and orally calculate how much each drop had cost him.
This morning he was darkly prepared to find something wrong, and he felt belittled when the mixture exploded sweet and strong, and the car didn’t even brush the door-jamb, gouged and splintery with many bruisings by fenders, as he backed out of the garage.
He was confused.