Chapter: I

THE assurance of Tanis Judique's friendship fortified Babbitt's
self-approval. At the Athletic Club he became experimental. Though
Vergil Gunch was silent, the others at the Roughnecks' Table came to
accept Babbitt as having, for no visible reason, "turned crank." They
argued windily with him, and he was cocky, and enjoyed the spectacle
of his interesting martyrdom. He even praised Seneca Doane. Professor
Pumphrey said that was carrying a joke too far; but Babbitt argued, "No!
Fact! I tell you he's got one of the keenest intellects in the country.
Why, Lord Wycombe said that--"

"Oh, who the hell is Lord Wycombe? What you always lugging him in for?
You been touting him for the last six weeks!" protested Orville Jones.

"George ordered him from Sears-Roebuck. You can get those English
high-muckamucks by mail for two bucks apiece," suggested Sidney
Finkelstein.

"That's all right now! Lord Wycombe, he's one of the biggest intellects
in English political life. As I was saying: Of course I'm conservative
myself, but I appreciate a guy like Senny Doane because--"

Vergil Gunch interrupted harshly, "I wonder if you are so conservative?
I find I can manage to run my own business without any skunks and reds
like Doane in it!"

The grimness of Gunch's voice, the hardness of his jaw, disconcerted
Babbitt, but he recovered and went on till they looked bored, then
irritated, then as doubtful as Gunch.


II

He thought of Tanis always. With a stir he remembered her every aspect.
His arms yearned for her. "I've found her! I've dreamed of her all these
years and now I've found her!" he exulted. He met her at the movies
in the morning; he drove out to her flat in the late afternoon or on
evenings when he was believed to be at the Elks. He knew her financial
affairs and advised her about them, while she lamented her feminine
ignorance, and praised his masterfulness, and proved to know much more
about bonds than he did. They had remembrances, and laughter over old
times. Once they quarreled, and he raged that she was as "bossy" as
his wife and far more whining when he was inattentive. But that passed
safely.

Their high hour was a tramp on a ringing December afternoon, through
snow-drifted meadows down to the icy Chaloosa River. She was exotic
in an astrachan cap and a short beaver coat; she slid on the ice and
shouted, and he panted after her, rotund with laughter.... Myra Babbitt
never slid on the ice.

He was afraid that they would be seen together. In Zenith it is
impossible to lunch with a neighbor's wife without the fact being
known, before nightfall, in every house in your circle. But Tanis was
beautifully discreet. However appealingly she might turn to him when
they were alone, she was gravely detached when they were abroad, and he
hoped that she would be taken for a client. Orville Jones once saw them
emerging from a movie theater, and Babbitt bumbled, "Let me make you
'quainted with Mrs. Judique. Now here's a lady who knows the right
broker to come to, Orvy!" Mr. Jones, though he was a man censorious of
morals and of laundry machinery, seemed satisfied.

His predominant fear--not from any especial fondness for her but from
the habit of propriety--was that his wife would learn of the affair. He
was certain that she knew nothing specific about Tanis, but he was also
certain that she suspected something indefinite. For years she had been
bored by anything more affectionate than a farewell kiss, yet she was
hurt by any slackening in his irritable periodic interest, and now he
had no interest; rather, a revulsion. He was completely faithful--to
Tanis. He was distressed by the sight of his wife's slack plumpness, by
her puffs and billows of flesh, by the tattered petticoat which she was
always meaning and always forgetting to throw away. But he was aware
that she, so long attuned to him, caught all his repulsions. He
elaborately, heavily, jocularly tried to check them. He couldn't.

They had a tolerable Christmas. Kenneth Escott was there, admittedly
engaged to Verona. Mrs. Babbitt was tearful and called Kenneth her new
son. Babbitt was worried about Ted, because he had ceased complaining
of the State University and become suspiciously acquiescent. He wondered
what the boy was planning, and was too shy to ask. Himself, Babbitt
slipped away on Christmas afternoon to take his present, a silver
cigarette-box, to Tanis. When he returned Mrs. Babbitt asked, much too
innocently, "Did you go out for a little fresh air?"

"Yes, just lil drive," he mumbled.

After New Year's his wife proposed, "I heard from my sister to-day,
George. She isn't well. I think perhaps I ought to go stay with her for
a few weeks."

Now, Mrs. Babbitt was not accustomed to leave home during the winter
except on violently demanding occasions, and only the summer before, she
had been gone for weeks. Nor was Babbitt one of the detachable husbands
who take separations casually. He liked to have her there; she looked
after his clothes; she knew how his steak ought to be cooked; and her
clucking made him feel secure. But he could not drum up even a dutiful
"Oh, she doesn't really need you, does she?" While he tried to look
regretful, while he felt that his wife was watching him, he was filled
with exultant visions of Tanis.

"Do you think I'd better go?" she said sharply.

"You've got to decide, honey; I can't."

She turned away, sighing, and his forehead was damp.

Till she went, four days later, she was curiously still, he cumbrously
affectionate. Her train left at noon. As he saw it grow small beyond the
train-shed he longed to hurry to Tanis.

"No, by golly, I won't do that!" he vowed. "I won't go near her for a
week!"

But he was at her flat at four.


III

He who had once controlled or seemed to control his life in a progress
unimpassioned but diligent and sane was for that fortnight borne on a
current of desire and very bad whisky and all the complications of
new acquaintances, those furious new intimates who demand so much more
attention than old friends. Each morning he gloomily recognized his
idiocies of the evening before. With his head throbbing, his tongue and
lips stinging from cigarettes, he incredulously counted the number of
drinks he had taken, and groaned, "I got to quit!" He had ceased saying,
"I WILL quit!" for however resolute he might be at dawn, he could not,
for a single evening, check his drift.

He had met Tanis's friends; he had, with the ardent haste of the
Midnight People, who drink and dance and rattle and are ever afraid to
be silent, been adopted as a member of her group, which they called "The
Bunch." He first met them after a day when he had worked particularly
hard and when he hoped to be quiet with Tanis and slowly sip her
admiration.

From down the hall he could hear shrieks and the grind of a phonograph.
As Tanis opened the door he saw fantastic figures dancing in a haze of
cigarette smoke. The tables and chairs were against the wall.

"Oh, isn't this dandy!" she gabbled at him. "Carrie Nork had the
loveliest idea. She decided it was time for a party, and she 'phoned the
Bunch and told 'em to gather round. . . . George, this is Carrie."

"Carrie" was, in the less desirable aspects of both, at once matronly
and spinsterish. She was perhaps forty; her hair was an unconvincing
ash-blond; and if her chest was flat, her hips were ponderous. She
greeted Babbitt with a giggling "Welcome to our little midst! Tanis says
you're a real sport."

He was apparently expected to dance, to be boyish and gay with Carrie,
and he did his unforgiving best. He towed her about the room, bumping
into other couples, into the radiator, into chair-legs cunningly
ambushed. As he danced he surveyed the rest of the Bunch: A thin young
woman who looked capable, conceited, and sarcastic. Another woman whom
he could never quite remember. Three overdressed and slightly effeminate
young men--soda-fountain clerks, or at least born for that profession.
A man of his own age, immovable, self-satisfied, resentful of Babbitt's
presence.

When he had finished his dutiful dance Tanis took him aside and begged,
"Dear, wouldn't you like to do something for me? I'm all out of booze,
and the Bunch want to celebrate. Couldn't you just skip down to Healey
Hanson's and get some?"

"Sure," he said, trying not to sound sullen.

"I'll tell you: I'll get Minnie Sonntag to drive down with you." Tanis
was pointing to the thin, sarcastic young woman.

Miss Sonntag greeted him with an astringent "How d'you do, Mr. Babbitt.
Tanis tells me you're a very prominent man, and I'm honored by being
allowed to drive with you. Of course I'm not accustomed to associating
with society people like you, so I don't know how to act in such exalted
circles!"

Thus Miss Sonntag talked all the way down to Healey Hanson's. To her
jibes he wanted to reply "Oh, go to the devil!" but he never quite
nerved himself to that reasonable comment. He was resenting the
existence of the whole Bunch. He had heard Tanis speak of "darling
Carrie" and "Min Sonntag--she's so clever--you'll adore her," but
they had never been real to him. He had pictured Tanis as living in a
rose-tinted vacuum, waiting for him, free of all the complications of a
Floral Heights.

When they returned he had to endure the patronage of the young
soda-clerks. They were as damply friendly as Miss Sonntag was dryly
hostile. They called him "Old Georgie" and shouted, "Come on now, sport;
shake a leg" . . . boys in belted coats, pimply boys, as young as Ted
and as flabby as chorus-men, but powerful to dance and to mind the
phonograph and smoke cigarettes and patronize Tanis. He tried to be one
of them; he cried "Good work, Pete!" but his voice creaked.

Tanis apparently enjoyed the companionship of the dancing darlings; she
bridled to their bland flirtation and casually kissed them at the end
of each dance. Babbitt hated her, for the moment. He saw her as
middle-aged. He studied the wrinkles in the softness of her throat, the
slack flesh beneath her chin. The taut muscles of her youth were loose
and drooping. Between dances she sat in the largest chair, waving her
cigarette, summoning her callow admirers to come and talk to her. ("She
thinks she's a blooming queen!" growled Babbitt.) She chanted to Miss
Sonntag, "Isn't my little studio sweet?" ("Studio, rats! It's a plain
old-maid-and-chow-dog flat! Oh, God, I wish I was home! I wonder if I
can't make a getaway now?")

His vision grew blurred, however, as he applied himself to Healey
Hanson's raw but vigorous whisky. He blended with the Bunch. He began
to rejoice that Carrie Nork and Pete, the most nearly intelligent of the
nimble youths, seemed to like him; and it was enormously important to
win over the surly older man, who proved to be a railway clerk named
Fulton Bemis.

The conversation of the Bunch was exclamatory, high-colored, full of
references to people whom Babbitt did not know. Apparently they thought
very comfortably of themselves. They were the Bunch, wise and beautiful
and amusing; they were Bohemians and urbanites, accustomed to all the
luxuries of Zenith: dance-halls, movie-theaters, and roadhouses; and
in a cynical superiority to people who were "slow" or "tightwad" they
cackled:

"Oh, Pete, did I tell you what that dub of a cashier said when I came in
late yesterday? Oh, it was per-fect-ly priceless!"

"Oh, but wasn't T. D. stewed! Say, he was simply ossified! What did
Gladys say to him?"

"Think of the nerve of Bob Bickerstaff trying to get us to come to his
house! Say, the nerve of him! Can you beat it for nerve? Some nerve I
call it!"

"Did you notice how Dotty was dancing? Gee, wasn't she the limit!"

Babbitt was to be heard sonorously agreeing with the once-hated Miss
Minnie Sonntag that persons who let a night go by without dancing to
jazz music were crabs, pikers, and poor fish; and he roared "You bet!"
when Mrs. Carrie Nork gurgled, "Don't you love to sit on the floor? It's
so Bohemian!" He began to think extremely well of the Bunch. When he
mentioned his friends Sir Gerald Doak, Lord Wycombe, William Washington
Eathorne, and Chum Frink, he was proud of their condescending interest.
He got so thoroughly into the jocund spirit that he didn't much mind
seeing Tanis drooping against the shoulder of the youngest and milkiest
of the young men, and he himself desired to hold Carrie Nork's pulpy
hand, and dropped it only because Tanis looked angry.

When he went home, at two, he was fully a member of the Bunch, and
all the week thereafter he was bound by the exceedingly straitened
conventions, the exceedingly wearing demands, of their life of pleasure
and freedom. He had to go to their parties; he was involved in the
agitation when everybody telephoned to everybody else that she hadn't
meant what she'd said when she'd said that, and anyway, why was Pete
going around saying she'd said it?

Never was a Family more insistent on learning one another's movements
than were the Bunch. All of them volubly knew, or indignantly desired
to know, where all the others had been every minute of the week. Babbitt
found himself explaining to Carrie or Fulton Bemis just what he had
been doing that he should not have joined them till ten o'clock, and
apologizing for having gone to dinner with a business acquaintance.

Every member of the Bunch was expected to telephone to every other
member at least once a week. "Why haven't you called me up?" Babbitt
was asked accusingly, not only by Tanis and Carrie but presently by new
ancient friends, Jennie and Capitolina and Toots.

If for a moment he had seen Tanis as withering and sentimental, he lost
that impression at Carrie Nork's dance. Mrs. Nork had a large house and
a small husband. To her party came all of the Bunch, perhaps thirty-five
of them when they were completely mobilized. Babbitt, under the name
of "Old Georgie," was now a pioneer of the Bunch, since each month it
changed half its membership and he who could recall the prehistoric days
of a fortnight ago, before Mrs. Absolom, the food-demonstrator, had
gone to Indianapolis, and Mac had "got sore at" Minnie, was a venerable
leader and able to condescend to new Petes and Minnies and Gladyses.

At Carrie's, Tanis did not have to work at being hostess. She was
dignified and sure, a clear fine figure in the black chiffon frock he
had always loved; and in the wider spaces of that ugly house Babbitt was
able to sit quietly with her. He repented of his first revulsion, mooned
at her feet, and happily drove her home. Next day he bought a violent
yellow tie, to make himself young for her. He knew, a little sadly, that
he could not make himself beautiful; he beheld himself as heavy, hinting
of fatness, but he danced, he dressed, he chattered, to be as young as
she was . . . as young as she seemed to be.


IV

As all converts, whether to a religion, love, or gardening, find as by
magic that though hitherto these hobbies have not seemed to exist, now
the whole world is filled with their fury, so, once he was converted
to dissipation, Babbitt discovered agreeable opportunities for it
everywhere.

He had a new view of his sporting neighbor, Sam Doppelbrau. The
Doppelbraus were respectable people, industrious people, prosperous
people, whose ideal of happiness was an eternal cabaret. Their life was
dominated by suburban bacchanalia of alcohol, nicotine, gasoline, and
kisses. They and their set worked capably all the week, and all week
looked forward to Saturday night, when they would, as they expressed
it, "throw a party;" and the thrown party grew noisier and noisier up to
Sunday dawn, and usually included an extremely rapid motor expedition to
nowhere in particular.

One evening when Tanis was at the theater, Babbitt found himself being
lively with the Doppelbraus, pledging friendship with men whom he
had for years privily denounced to Mrs. Babbitt as a "rotten bunch of
tin-horns that I wouldn't go out with, not if they were the last people
on earth." That evening he had sulkily come home and poked about in
front of the house, chipping off the walk the ice-clots, like fossil
footprints, made by the steps of passers-by during the recent snow.
Howard Littlefield came up snuffling.

"Still a widower, George?"

"Yump. Cold again to-night."

"What do you hear from the wife?"

"She's feeling fine, but her sister is still pretty sick."

"Say, better come in and have dinner with us to-night, George."

"Oh--oh, thanks. Have to go out."

Suddenly he could not endure Littlefield's recitals of the more
interesting statistics about totally uninteresting problems. He scraped
at the walk and grunted.

Sam Doppelbrau appeared.

"Evenin', Babbitt. Working hard?"

"Yuh, lil exercise."

"Cold enough for you to-night?"

"Well, just about."

"Still a widower?"

"Uh-huh."

"Say, Babbitt, while she's away--I know you don't care much for
booze-fights, but the Missus and I'd be awfully glad if you could come
in some night. Think you could stand a good cocktail for once?"

"Stand it? Young fella, I bet old Uncle George can mix the best cocktail
in these United States!"

"Hurray! That's the way to talk! Look here: There's some folks coming
to the house to-night, Louetta Swanson and some other live ones, and I'm
going to open up a bottle of pre-war gin, and maybe we'll dance a while.
Why don't you drop in and jazz it up a little, just for a change?"

"Well--What time they coming?"

He was at Sam Doppelbrau's at nine. It was the third time he had entered
the house. By ten he was calling Mr. Doppelbrau "Sam, old hoss."

At eleven they all drove out to the Old Farm Inn. Babbitt sat in the
back of Doppelbrau's car with Louetta Swanson. Once he had timorously
tried to make love to her. Now he did not try; he merely made love; and
Louetta dropped her head on his shoulder, told him what a nagger Eddie
was, and accepted Babbitt as a decent and well-trained libertine.

With the assistance of Tanis's Bunch, the Doppelbraus, and other
companions in forgetfulness, there was not an evening for two weeks when
he did not return home late and shaky. With his other faculties blurred
he yet had the motorist's gift of being able to drive when he could
scarce walk; of slowing down at corners and allowing for approaching
cars. He came wambling into the house. If Verona and Kenneth Escott were
about, he got past them with a hasty greeting, horribly aware of their
level young glances, and hid himself up-stairs. He found when he came
into the warm house that he was hazier than he had believed. His head
whirled. He dared not lie down. He tried to soak out the alcohol in a
hot bath. For the moment his head was clearer but when he moved about
the bathroom his calculations of distance were wrong, so that he dragged
down the towels, and knocked over the soap-dish with a clatter which, he
feared, would betray him to the children. Chilly in his dressing-gown he
tried to read the evening paper. He could follow every word; he seemed
to take in the sense of things; but a minute afterward he could not have
told what he had been reading. When he went to bed his brain flew in
circles, and he hastily sat up, struggling for self-control. At last
he was able to lie still, feeling only a little sick and dizzy--and
enormously ashamed. To hide his "condition" from his own children!
To have danced and shouted with people whom he despised! To have
said foolish things, sung idiotic songs, tried to kiss silly girls!
Incredulously he remembered that he had by his roaring familiarity with
them laid himself open to the patronizing of youths whom he would have
kicked out of his office; that by dancing too ardently he had exposed
himself to rebukes from the rattiest of withering women. As it came
relentlessly back to him he snarled, "I hate myself! God how I hate
myself!" But, he raged, "I'm through! No more! Had enough, plenty!"

He was even surer about it the morning after, when he was trying to be
grave and paternal with his daughters at breakfast. At noontime he was
less sure. He did not deny that he had been a fool; he saw it almost
as clearly as at midnight; but anything, he struggled, was better than
going back to a life of barren heartiness. At four he wanted a drink. He
kept a whisky flask in his desk now, and after two minutes of battle he
had his drink. Three drinks later he began to see the Bunch as tender
and amusing friends, and by six he was with them . . . and the tale was
to be told all over.

Each morning his head ached a little less. A bad head for drinks had
been his safeguard, but the safeguard was crumbling. Presently he
could be drunk at dawn, yet not feel particularly wretched in his
conscience--or in his stomach--when he awoke at eight. No regret, no
desire to escape the toil of keeping up with the arduous merriment of
the Bunch, was so great as his feeling of social inferiority when he
failed to keep up. To be the "livest" of them was as much his ambition
now as it had been to excel at making money, at playing golf, at
motor-driving, at oratory, at climbing to the McKelvey set. But
occasionally he failed.

He found that Pete and the other young men considered the Bunch too
austerely polite and the Carrie who merely kissed behind doors too
embarrassingly monogamic. As Babbitt sneaked from Floral Heights down
to the Bunch, so the young gallants sneaked from the proprieties of the
Bunch off to "times" with bouncing young women whom they picked up
in department stores and at hotel coatrooms. Once Babbitt tried to
accompany them. There was a motor car, a bottle of whisky, and for him
a grubby shrieking cash-girl from Parcher and Stein's. He sat beside her
and worried. He was apparently expected to "jolly her along," but when
she sang out, "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. All through the meal Gunch watched them, while Babbitt
watched himself being watched and lugubriously tried to keep from
spoiling Tanis's gaiety. "I felt like a spree to-day," she rippled. "I
love the Thornleigh, don't you? It's so live and yet so--so refined."

He made talk about the Thornleigh, the service, the food, the people he
recognized in the restaurant, all but Vergil Gunch. There did not
seem to be anything else to talk of. He smiled conscientiously at her
fluttering jests; he agreed with her that Minnie Sonntag was "so hard to
get along with," and young Pete "such a silly lazy kid, really just no
good at all." But he himself had nothing to say. He considered telling
her his worries about Gunch, but--"oh, gosh, it was too much work to go
into the whole thing and explain about Verg and everything."

He was relieved when he put Tanis on a trolley; he was cheerful in the
familiar simplicities of his office.

At four o'clock Vergil Gunch called on him.

Babbitt was agitated, but Gunch began in a friendly way:

"How's the boy? Say, some of us are getting up a scheme we'd kind of
like to have you come in on."

"Fine, Verg. Shoot."

"You know during the war we had the Undesirable Element, the Reds and
walking delegates and just the plain common grouches, dead to rights,
and so did we for quite a while after the war, but folks forget about
the danger and that gives these cranks a chance to begin working
underground again, especially a lot of these parlor socialists. Well,
it's up to the folks that do a little sound thinking to make a conscious
effort to keep bucking these fellows. Some guy back East has organized
a society called the Good Citizens' League for just that purpose. Of
course the Chamber of Commerce and the American Legion and so on do
a fine work in keeping the decent people in the saddle, but they're
devoted to so many other causes that they can't attend to this one
problem properly. But the Good Citizens' League, the G. C. L., they
stick right to it. Oh, the G. C. L. has to have some other ostensible
purposes--frinstance here in Zenith I think it ought to support the
park-extension project and the City Planning Committee--and then, too,
it should have a social aspect, being made up of the best people--have
dances and so on, especially as one of the best ways it can put the
kibosh on cranks is to apply this social boycott business to folks big
enough so you can't reach 'em otherwise. Then if that don't work, the G.
C. L. can finally send a little delegation around to inform folks that
get too flip that they got to conform to decent standards and quit
shooting off their mouths so free. Don't it sound like the organization
could do a great work? We've already got some of the strongest men in
town, and of course we want you in. How about it?"

Babbitt was uncomfortable. He felt a compulsion back to all the
standards he had so vaguely yet so desperately been fleeing. He fumbled:

"I suppose you'd especially light on fellows like Seneca Doane and try
to make 'em--"

"You bet your sweet life we would! Look here, old Georgie: I've never
for one moment believed you meant it when you've defended Doane, and the
strikers and so on, at the Club. I knew you were simply kidding those
poor galoots like Sid Finkelstein.... At least I certainly hope you were
kidding!"

"Oh, well--sure--Course you might say--" Babbitt was conscious of how
feeble he sounded, conscious of Gunch's mature and relentless eye.
"Gosh, you know where I stand! I'm no labor agitator! I'm a business
man, first, last, and all the time! But--but honestly, I don't think
Doane means so badly, and you got to remember he's an old friend of
mine."

"George, when it comes right down to a struggle between decency and the
security of our homes on the one hand, and red ruin and those lazy
dogs plotting for free beer on the other, you got to give up even old
friendships. 'He that is not with me is against me.'"

"Ye-es, I suppose--"

"How about it? Going to join us in the Good Citizens' League?"

"I'll have to think it over, Verg."

"All right, just as you say." Babbitt was relieved to be let off so
easily, but Gunch went on: "George, I don't know what's come over you;
none of us do; and we've talked a lot about you. For a while we figured
out you'd been upset by what happened to poor Riesling, and we forgave
you for any fool thing you said, but that's old stuff now, George, and
we can't make out what's got into you. Personally, I've always defended
you, but I must say it's getting too much for me. All the boys at the
Athletic Club and the Boosters' are sore, the way you go on deliberately
touting Doane and his bunch of hell-hounds, and talking about being
liberal--which means being wishy-washy--and even saying this preacher
guy Ingram isn't a professional free-love artist. And then the way you
been carrying on personally! Joe Pumphrey says he saw you out the other
night with a gang of totties, all stewed to the gills, and here to-day
coming right into the Thornleigh with a--well, she may be all right and
a perfect lady, but she certainly did look like a pretty gay skirt for
a fellow with his wife out of town to be taking to lunch. Didn't look
well. What the devil has come over you, George?"

"Strikes me there's a lot of fellows that know more about my personal
business than I do myself!"

"Now don't go getting sore at me because I come out flatfooted like a
friend and say what I think instead of tattling behind your back, the
way a whole lot of 'em do. I tell you George, you got a position in the
community, and the community expects you to live up to it. And--Better
think over joining the Good Citizens' League. See you about it later."

He was gone.

That evening Babbitt dined alone. He saw all the Clan of Good Fellows
peering through the restaurant window, spying on him. Fear sat beside
him, and he told himself that to-night he would not go to Tanis's flat;
and he did not go . . . till late.

 Now that he knows he has Tanis Judique's support, Babbitt feels like he can be open with his newfound liberalism. At the Athletic Club, he even gets a kick out of bothering people with his views and making them argue until they're red in the face. But even though he likes annoying most people, Babbitt is intimidated by the silent, angry way that Vergil Gunch is constantly staring at him. Meanwhile, Babbitt exults over his newfound connection with Tanis. He thinks of her as the fairy child whom he's been looking for throughout his adult life. He is afraid, though, that Myra will find out about their affair. The more time he spends with Tanis, the less attracted he is to Myra. He is frightened by how old she looks. This, of course, is just a projection of his own fears about aging. That Christmas, he even sneaks away to bring Tanis a silver cigarette box as a present. When he gets home, he just tells his wife he went out for some fresh air. After New Year's, Myra informs Babbitt that she needs to go visit her sick sister for a while. She badly wants him to beg her to stay, but the truth is that he wants her to go away. She can tell he feels this way, and she's devastated by it. Babbitt feels so guilty that afternoon that he swears not to visit Tanis. Then he goes and visits her. Every day after hanging out with Tanis and her friends, Babbitt tends to wake up with a terrible hangover. He says to himself that he's going to quit, but of course never does. The narrator gives us a brief description of Tanis' friend group, whom she affectionately calls "The Bunch." At first, Babbitt finds them all kind of trashy and feels uncomfortable around them. But once the drinks get poured, he's everyone's best friend and he admires the group's freedom. We can only assume that when these nights end, he ends up in Tanis' bed. One night, his neighbor Howard Littlefield invites him over for dinner, but Babbitt refuses. Now that he's used to hanging out with The Bunch, he can't stand all of Littlefield's boring speeches about facts and figures. Moments later, his other neighbor Sam Doppelbrau stops by and invites him over for a party. Since Babbitt likes Sam's alcohol-infused parties, he agrees to come. Partway through the night, the people from the party get into taxis to drive somewhere else. Babbitt ends up in the back of a car with Sam's wife Louetta. This time, he has no modesty with her. He flirts aggressively with her and they ride with her head on his shoulder. Hours later, he comes wobbling back into his own home and tries to avoid being seen by his daughter Verona and her fiance Ken. Again, he vows to mend his ways and stop being such a drunk. Eventually, even some of the people in The Bunch tell Babbitt he needs to slow down. He can't stand the fact that he has a bunch of nobodies telling him what to do, though. And of course, he doesn't slow down. One day, while driving people from the bunch to go skating, Babbitt sees one of his old friends from The Athletic Club on the sidewalk. He knows that the guy has just seen him hanging out with a bunch of young party animals, but the other guy seems determined not to let on that he's seen. This makes Babbitt nervous about where his life is heading. Babbitt is having lunch at The Athletic Club one day when his friend Vergil Gunch comes up and invites him to join a group called the Good Citizens' League, which is designed to get socialists and communists thrown in jail. Babbitt knows, though, that joining would force him to go after people like Seneca Doane. He tells Vergil that he'll have to think it over, and Vergil walks away unsatisfied with the answer. He says he knows that something weird is going on with Babbitt but he doesn't know what it is. He also mentions that everyone knows about Babbitt's late-night escapades with "The Bunch," which is beginning to cost him his reputation. That night, Babbitt eats dinner alone and promises himself he won't go to Tanis' apartment. And he actually makes it late into the night, but then caves and goes.

