Chapter: THE certainty that he was not going to be accepted by the McKelveys made
Babbitt feel guilty and a little absurd. But he went more regularly to
the Elks; at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon he was oratorical regarding
the wickedness of strikes; and again he saw himself as a Prominent
Citizen.

His clubs and associations were food comfortable to his spirit.

Of a decent man in Zenith it was required that he should belong to
one, preferably two or three, of the innumerous "lodges" and
prosperity-boosting lunch-clubs; to the Rotarians, the Kiwanis, or the
Boosters; to the Oddfellows, Moose, Masons, Red Men, Woodmen, Owls,
Eagles, Maccabees, Knights of Pythias, Knights of Columbus, and other
secret orders characterized by a high degree of heartiness, sound
morals, and reverence for the Constitution. There were four reasons for
joining these orders: It was the thing to do. It was good for business,
since lodge-brothers frequently became customers. It gave to Americans
unable to become Geheimrate or Commendatori such unctuous honorifics as
High Worthy Recording Scribe and Grand Hoogow to add to the commonplace
distinctions of Colonel, Judge, and Professor. And it permitted the
swaddled American husband to stay away from home for one evening a week.
The lodge was his piazza, his pavement cafe. He could shoot pool and
talk man-talk and be obscene and valiant.

Babbitt was what he called a "joiner" for all these reasons.

Behind the gold and scarlet banner of his public achievements was the
dun background of office-routine: leases, sales-contracts, lists of
properties to rent. The evenings of oratory and committees and lodges
stimulated him like brandy, but every morning he was sandy-tongued. Week
by week he accumulated nervousness. He was in open disagreement with his
outside salesman, Stanley Graff; and once, though her charms had always
kept him nickeringly polite to her, he snarled at Miss McGoun for
changing his letters.

But in the presence of Paul Riesling he relaxed. At least once a week
they fled from maturity. On Saturday they played golf, jeering, "As
a golfer, you're a fine tennis-player," or they motored all Sunday
afternoon, stopping at village lunchrooms to sit on high stools at a
counter and drink coffee from thick cups. Sometimes Paul came over in
the evening with his violin, and even Zilla was silent as the lonely man
who had lost his way and forever crept down unfamiliar roads spun out
his dark soul in music.


II

Nothing gave Babbitt more purification and publicity than his labors for
the Sunday School.

His church, the Chatham Road Presbyterian, was one of the largest and
richest, one of the most oaken and velvety, in Zenith. The pastor was
the Reverend John Jennison Drew, M.A., D.D., LL.D. (The M.A. and the
D.D. were from Elbert University, Nebraska, the LL.D. from Waterbury
College, Oklahoma.) He was eloquent, efficient, and versatile. He
presided at meetings for the denunciation of unions or the elevation of
domestic service, and confided to the audiences that as a poor boy he
had carried newspapers. For the Saturday edition of the Evening Advocate
he wrote editorials on "The Manly Man's Religion" and "The Dollars and
Sense Value of Christianity," which were printed in bold type surrounded
by a wiggly border. He often said that he was "proud to be known as
primarily a business man" and that he certainly was not going to "permit
the old Satan to monopolize all the pep and punch." He was a thin,
rustic-faced young man with gold spectacles and a bang of dull brown
hair, but when he hurled himself into oratory he glowed with power.
He admitted that he was too much the scholar and poet to imitate the
evangelist, Mike Monday, yet he had once awakened his fold to new life,
and to larger collections, by the challenge, "My brethren, the real
cheap skate is the man who won't lend to the Lord!"

He had made his church a true community center. It contained everything
but a bar. It had a nursery, a Thursday evening supper with a short
bright missionary lecture afterward, a gymnasium, a fortnightly
motion-picture show, a library of technical books for young
workmen--though, unfortunately, no young workman ever entered the church
except to wash the windows or repair the furnace--and a sewing-circle
which made short little pants for the children of the poor while Mrs.
Drew read aloud from earnest novels.

Though Dr. Drew's theology was Presbyterian, his church-building
was gracefully Episcopalian. As he said, it had the "most perdurable
features of those noble ecclesiastical monuments of grand Old England
which stand as symbols of the eternity of faith, religious and civil."
It was built of cheery iron-spot brick in an improved Gothic style, and
the main auditorium had indirect lighting from electric globes in lavish
alabaster bowls.

On a December morning when the Babbitts went to church, Dr. John
Jennison Drew was unusually eloquent. The crowd was immense. Ten brisk
young ushers, in morning coats with white roses, were bringing folding
chairs up from the basement. There was an impressive musical program,
conducted by Sheldon Smeeth, educational director of the Y.M.C.A.,
who also sang the offertory. Babbitt cared less for this, because some
misguided person had taught young Mr. Smeeth to smile, smile, smile
while he was singing, but with all the appreciation of a fellow-orator
he admired Dr. Drew's sermon. It had the intellectual quality which
distinguished the Chatham Road congregation from the grubby chapels on
Smith Street.

"At this abundant harvest-time of all the year," Dr. Drew chanted,
"when, though stormy the sky and laborious the path to the drudging
wayfarer, yet the hovering and bodiless spirit swoops back o'er all the
labors and desires of the past twelve months, oh, then it seems to
me there sounds behind all our apparent failures the golden chorus of
greeting from those passed happily on; and lo! on the dim horizon we
see behind dolorous clouds the mighty mass of mountains--mountains of
melody, mountains of mirth, mountains of might!"

"I certainly do like a sermon with culture and thought in it," meditated
Babbitt.

At the end of the service he was delighted when the pastor, actively
shaking hands at the door, twittered, "Oh, Brother Babbitt, can you wait
a jiffy? Want your advice."

"Sure, doctor! You bet!"

"Drop into my office. I think you'll like the cigars there." Babbitt did
like the cigars. He also liked the office, which was distinguished from
other offices only by the spirited change of the familiar wall-placard
to "This is the Lord's Busy Day." Chum Frink came in, then William W.
Eathorne.

Mr. Eathorne was the seventy-year-old president of the First State Bank
of Zenith. He still wore the delicate patches of side-whiskers which had
been the uniform of bankers in 1870. If Babbitt was envious of the
Smart Set of the McKelveys, before William Washington Eathorne he was
reverent. Mr. Eathorne had nothing to do with the Smart Set. He was
above it. He was the great-grandson of one of the five men who founded
Zenith, in 1792, and he was of the third generation of bankers. He could
examine credits, make loans, promote or injure a man's business. In his
presence Babbitt breathed quickly and felt young.

The Reverend Dr. Drew bounced into the room and flowered into speech:

"I've asked you gentlemen to stay so I can put a proposition before you.
The Sunday School needs bucking up. It's the fourth largest in Zenith,
but there's no reason why we should take anybody's dust. We ought to be
first. I want to request you, if you will, to form a committee of
advice and publicity for the Sunday School; look it over and make any
suggestions for its betterment, and then, perhaps, see that the press
gives us some attention--give the public some really helpful and
constructive news instead of all these murders and divorces."

"Excellent," said the banker.

Babbitt and Frink were enchanted to join him.


III

If you had asked Babbitt what his religion was, he would have answered
in sonorous Boosters'-Club rhetoric, "My religion is to serve my fellow
men, to honor my brother as myself, and to do my bit to make life
happier for one and all." If you had pressed him for more detail, he
would have announced, "I'm a member of the Presbyterian Church, and
naturally, I accept its doctrines." If you had been so brutal as to
go on, he would have protested, "There's no use discussing and arguing
about religion; it just stirs up bad feeling."

Actually, the content of his theology was that there was a supreme being
who had tried to make us perfect, but presumably had failed; that if
one was a Good Man he would go to a place called Heaven (Babbitt
unconsciously pictured it as rather like an excellent hotel with a
private garden), but if one was a Bad Man, that is, if he murdered
or committed burglary or used cocaine or had mistresses or sold
non-existent real estate, he would be punished. Babbitt was uncertain,
however, about what he called "this business of Hell." He explained
to Ted, "Of course I'm pretty liberal; I don't exactly believe in a
fire-and-brimstone Hell. Stands to reason, though, that a fellow can't
get away with all sorts of Vice and not get nicked for it, see how I
mean?"

Upon this theology he rarely pondered. The kernel of his practical
religion was that it was respectable, and beneficial to one's business,
to be seen going to services; that the church kept the Worst Elements
from being still worse; and that the pastor's sermons, however dull they
might seem at the time of taking, yet had a voodooistic power which "did
a fellow good--kept him in touch with Higher Things."

His first investigations for the Sunday School Advisory Committee did
not inspire him.

He liked the Busy Folks' Bible Class, composed of mature men and women
and addressed by the old-school physician, Dr. T. Atkins Jordan, in
a sparkling style comparable to that of the more refined humorous
after-dinner speakers, but when he went down to the junior classes he
was disconcerted. He heard Sheldon Smeeth, educational director of the
Y.M.C.A. and leader of the church-choir, a pale but strenuous young man
with curly hair and a smile, teaching a class of sixteen-year-old boys.
Smeeth lovingly admonished them, "Now, fellows, I'm going to have a
Heart to Heart Talk Evening at my house next Thursday. We'll get off by
ourselves and be frank about our Secret Worries. You can just tell old
Sheldy anything, like all the fellows do at the Y. I'm going to explain
frankly about the horrible practises a kiddy falls into unless he's
guided by a Big Brother, and about the perils and glory of Sex." Old
Sheldy beamed damply; the boys looked ashamed; and Babbitt didn't know
which way to turn his embarrassed eyes.

Less annoying but also much duller were the minor classes which were
being instructed in philosophy and Oriental ethnology by earnest
spinsters. Most of them met in the highly varnished Sunday School room,
but there was an overflow to the basement, which was decorated with
varicose water-pipes and lighted by small windows high up in the oozing
wall. What Babbitt saw, however, was the First Congregational Church
of Catawba. He was back in the Sunday School of his boyhood. He smelled
again that polite stuffiness to be found only in church parlors; he
recalled the case of drab Sunday School books: "Hetty, a Humble
Heroine" and "Josephus, a Lad of Palestine;" he thumbed once more the
high-colored text-cards which no boy wanted but no boy liked to throw
away, because they were somehow sacred; he was tortured by the stumbling
rote of thirty-five years ago, as in the vast Zenith church he listened
to:

"Now, Edgar, you read the next verse. What does it mean when it says
it's easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye? What does this
teach us? Clarence! Please don't wiggle so! If you had studied your
lesson you wouldn't be so fidgety. Now, Earl, what is the lesson
Jesus was trying to teach his disciples? The one thing I want you
to especially remember, boys, is the words, 'With God all things
are possible.' Just think of that always--Clarence, PLEASE pay
attention--just say 'With God all things are possible' whenever you
feel discouraged, and, Alec, will you read the next verse; if you'd pay
attention you wouldn't lose your place!"

Drone--drone--drone--gigantic bees that boomed in a cavern of
drowsiness--

Babbitt started from his open-eyed nap, thanked the teacher for "the
privilege of listening to her splendid teaching," and staggered on to
the next circle.

After two weeks of this he had no suggestions whatever for the Reverend
Dr. Drew.

Then he discovered a world of Sunday School journals, an enormous
and busy domain of weeklies and monthlies which were as technical,
as practical and forward-looking, as the real-estate columns or the
shoe-trade magazines. He bought half a dozen of them at a religious
book-shop and till after midnight he read them and admired.

He found many lucrative tips on "Focusing Appeals," "Scouting for New
Members," and "Getting Prospects to Sign up with the Sunday School." He
particularly liked the word "prospects," and he was moved by the rubric:

"The moral springs of the community's life lie deep in its Sunday
Schools--its schools of religious instruction and inspiration. Neglect
now means loss of spiritual vigor and moral power in years to come....
Facts like the above, followed by a straight-arm appeal, will reach
folks who can never be laughed or jollied into doing their part."

Babbitt admitted, "That's so. I used to skin out of the ole Sunday
School at Catawba every chance I got, but same time, I wouldn't be where
I am to-day, maybe, if it hadn't been for its training in--in moral
power. And all about the Bible. (Great literature. Have to read some of
it again, one of these days)."

How scientifically the Sunday School could be organized he learned from
an article in the Westminster Adult Bible Class:

"The second vice-president looks after the fellowship of the class. She
chooses a group to help her. These become ushers. Every one who comes
gets a glad hand. No one goes away a stranger. One member of the group
stands on the doorstep and invites passers-by to come in."

Perhaps most of all Babbitt appreciated the remarks by William H.
Ridgway in the Sunday School Times:

"If you have a Sunday School class without any pep and get-up-and-go
in it, that is, without interest, that is uncertain in attendance, that
acts like a fellow with the spring fever, let old Dr. Ridgway write you
a prescription. Rx. Invite the Bunch for Supper."

The Sunday School journals were as well rounded as they were practical.
They neglected none of the arts. As to music the Sunday School Times
advertised that C. Harold Lowden, "known to thousands through his sacred
compositions," had written a new masterpiece, "entitled 'Yearning for
You.' The poem, by Harry D. Kerr, is one of the daintiest you could
imagine and the music is indescribably beautiful. Critics are agreed
that it will sweep the country. May be made into a charming sacred song
by substituting the hymn words, 'I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.'"

Even manual training was adequately considered. Babbitt noted an
ingenious way of illustrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

"Model for Pupils to Make. Tomb with Rolling Door.--Use a square covered
box turned upside down. Pull the cover forward a little to form a groove
at the bottom. Cut a square door, also cut a circle of cardboard to more
than cover the door. Cover the circular door and the tomb thickly with
stiff mixture of sand, flour and water and let it dry. It was the heavy
circular stone over the door the women found 'rolled away' on Easter
morning. This is the story we are to 'Go-tell.'"

In their advertisements the Sunday School journals were thoroughly
efficient. Babbitt was interested in a preparation which "takes the
place of exercise for sedentary men by building up depleted nerve
tissue, nourishing the brain and the digestive system." He was edified
to learn that the selling of Bibles was a hustling and strictly
competitive industry, and as an expert on hygiene he was pleased by the
Sanitary Communion Outfit Company's announcement of "an improved and
satisfactory outfit throughout, including highly polished beautiful
mahogany tray. This tray eliminates all noise, is lighter and more
easily handled than others and is more in keeping with the furniture of
the church than a tray of any other material."


IV

He dropped the pile of Sunday School journals.

He pondered, "Now, there's a real he-world. Corking!

"Ashamed I haven't sat in more. Fellow that's an influence in the
community--shame if he doesn't take part in a real virile hustling
religion. Sort of Christianity Incorporated, you might say.

"But with all reverence.

"Some folks might claim these Sunday School fans are undignified and
unspiritual and so on. Sure! Always some skunk to spring things like
that! Knocking and sneering and tearing-down--so much easier than
building up. But me, I certainly hand it to these magazines. They've
brought ole George F. Babbitt into camp, and that's the answer to the
critics!

"The more manly and practical a fellow is, the more he ought to lead the
enterprising Christian life. Me for it! Cut out this carelessness and
boozing and--Rone! Where the devil you been? This is a fine time o'
night to be coming in!"





I

THERE are but three or four old houses in Floral Heights, and in Floral
Heights an old house is one which was built before 1880. The largest of
these is the residence of William Washington Eathorne, president of the
First State Bank.

The Eathorne Mansion preserves the memory of the "nice parts" of Zenith
as they appeared from 1860 to 1900. It is a red brick immensity with
gray sandstone lintels and a roof of slate in courses of red, green, and
dyspeptic yellow. There are two anemic towers, one roofed with copper,
the other crowned with castiron ferns. The porch is like an open
tomb; it is supported by squat granite pillars above which hang frozen
cascades of brick. At one side of the house is a huge stained-glass
window in the shape of a keyhole.

But the house has an effect not at all humorous. It embodies the heavy
dignity of those Victorian financiers who ruled the generation between
the pioneers and the brisk "sales-engineers" and created a somber
oligarchy by gaining control of banks, mills, land, railroads, mines.
Out of the dozen contradictory Zeniths which together make up the
true and complete Zenith, none is so powerful and enduring yet none
so unfamiliar to the citizens as the small, still, dry, polite, cruel
Zenith of the William Eathornes; and for that tiny hierarchy the other
Zeniths unwittingly labor and insignificantly die.

Most of the castles of the testy Victorian tetrarchs are gone now or
decayed into boarding-houses, but the Eathorne Mansion remains virtuous
and aloof, reminiscent of London, Back Bay, Rittenhouse Square. Its
marble steps are scrubbed daily, the brass plate is reverently polished,
and the lace curtains are as prim and superior as William Washington
Eathorne himself.

With a certain awe Babbitt and Chum Frink called on Eathorne for a
meeting of the Sunday School Advisory Committee; with uneasy stillness
they followed a uniformed maid through catacombs of reception-rooms to
the library. It was as unmistakably the library of a solid old banker as
Eathorne's side-whiskers were the side-whiskers of a solid old banker.
The books were most of them Standard Sets, with the correct and
traditional touch of dim blue, dim gold, and glossy calf-skin. The
fire was exactly correct and traditional; a small, quiet, steady fire,
reflected by polished fire-irons. The oak desk was dark and old and
altogether perfect; the chairs were gently supercilious.

Eathorne's inquiries as to the healths of Mrs. Babbitt, Miss Babbitt,
and the Other Children were softly paternal, but Babbitt had nothing
with which to answer him. It was indecent to think of using the "How's
tricks, ole socks?" which gratified Vergil Gunch and Frink and Howard
Littlefield--men who till now had seemed successful and urbane. Babbitt
and Frink sat politely, and politely did Eathorne observe, opening his
thin lips just wide enough to dismiss the words, "Gentlemen, before we
begin our conference--you may have felt the cold in coming here--so good
of you to save an old man the journey--shall we perhaps have a whisky
toddy?"

So well trained was Babbitt in all the conversation that befits a Good
Fellow that he almost disgraced himself with "Rather than make trouble,
and always providin' there ain't any enforcement officers hiding in
the waste-basket--" The words died choking in his throat. He bowed in
flustered obedience. So did Chum Frink.

Eathorne rang for the maid.

The modern and luxurious Babbitt had never seen any one ring for a
servant in a private house, except during meals. Himself, in hotels, had
rung for bell-boys, but in the house you didn't hurt Matilda's feelings;
you went out in the hall and shouted for her. Nor had he, since
prohibition, known any one to be casual about drinking. It was
extraordinary merely to sip his toddy and not cry, "Oh, maaaaan, this
hits me right where I live!" And always, with the ecstasy of youth
meeting greatness, he marveled, "That little fuzzy-face there, why,
he could make me or break me! If he told my banker to call my loans--!
Gosh! That quarter-sized squirt! And looking like he hadn't got a single
bit of hustle to him! I wonder--Do we Boosters throw too many fits about
pep?"

From this thought he shuddered away, and listened devoutly to Eathorne's
ideas on the advancement of the Sunday School, which were very clear and
very bad.

Diffidently Babbitt outlined his own suggestions:

"I think if you analyze the needs of the school, in fact, going right
at it as if it was a merchandizing problem, of course the one basic
and fundamental need is growth. I presume we're all agreed we won't be
satisfied till we build up the biggest darn Sunday School in the whole
state, so the Chatham Road Presbyterian won't have to take anything
off anybody. Now about jazzing up the campaign for prospects: they've
already used contesting teams, and given prizes to the kids that bring
in the most members. And they made a mistake there: the prizes were
a lot of folderols and doodads like poetry books and illustrated
Testaments, instead of something a real live kid would want to work for,
like real cash or a speedometer for his motor cycle. Course I suppose
it's all fine and dandy to illustrate the lessons with these decorated
book-marks and blackboard drawings and so on, but when it comes down to
real he-hustling, getting out and drumming up customers--or members, I
mean, why, you got to make it worth a fellow's while.

"Now, I want to propose two stunts: First, divide the Sunday School into
four armies, depending on age. Everybody gets a military rank in his own
army according to how many members he brings in, and the duffers that
lie down on us and don't bring in any, they remain privates. The pastor
and superintendent rank as generals. And everybody has got to give
salutes and all the rest of that junk, just like a regular army, to make
'em feel it's worth while to get rank.

"Then, second: Course the school has its advertising committee, but,
Lord, nobody ever really works good--nobody works well just for the love
of it. The thing to do is to be practical and up-to-date, and hire a
real paid press-agent for the Sunday School-some newspaper fellow who
can give part of his time."

"Sure, you bet!" said Chum Frink.

"Think of the nice juicy bits he could get in!" Babbitt crowed.
"Not only the big, salient, vital facts, about how fast the Sunday
School--and the collection--is growing, but a lot of humorous gossip
and kidding: about how some blowhard fell down on his pledge to get new
members, or the good time the Sacred Trinity class of girls had at their
wieniewurst party. And on the side, if he had time, the press-agent
might even boost the lessons themselves--do a little advertising for
all the Sunday Schools in town, in fact. No use being hoggish toward
the rest of 'em, providing we can keep the bulge on 'em in membership.
Frinstance, he might get the papers to--Course I haven't got a literary
training like Frink here, and I'm just guessing how the pieces ought
to be written, but take frinstance, suppose the week's lesson is about
Jacob; well, the press-agent might get in something that would have
a fine moral, and yet with a trick headline that'd get folks to read
it--say like: 'Jake Fools the Old Man; Makes Getaway with Girl and
Bankroll.' See how I mean? That'd get their interest! Now, course, Mr.
Eathorne, you're conservative, and maybe you feel these stunts would be
undignified, but honestly, I believe they'd bring home the bacon."

Eathorne folded his hands on his comfortable little belly and purred
like an aged pussy:

"May I say, first, that I have been very much pleased by your analysis
of the situation, Mr. Babbitt. As you surmise, it's necessary in My
Position to be conservative, and perhaps endeavor to maintain a certain
standard of dignity. Yet I think you'll find me somewhat progressive. In
our bank, for example, I hope I may say that we have as modern a method
of publicity and advertising as any in the city. Yes, I fancy you'll
find us oldsters quite cognizant of the shifting spiritual values of the
age. Yes, oh yes. And so, in fact, it pleases me to be able to say
that though personally I might prefer the sterner Presbyterianism of an
earlier era--"

Babbitt finally gathered that Eathorne was willing.

Chum Frink suggested as part-time press-agent one Kenneth Escott,
reporter on the Advocate-Times.

They parted on a high plane of amity and Christian helpfulness.

Babbitt did not drive home, but toward the center of the city. He wished
to be by himself and exult over the beauty of intimacy with William
Washington Eathorne.


II

A snow-blanched evening of ringing pavements and eager lights.

Great golden lights of trolley-cars sliding along the packed snow of the
roadway. Demure lights of little houses. The belching glare of a distant
foundry, wiping out the sharp-edged stars. Lights of neighborhood drug
stores where friends gossiped, well pleased, after the day's work.

The green light of a police-station, and greener radiance on the snow;
the drama of a patrol-wagon--gong beating like a terrified heart,
headlights scorching the crystal-sparkling street, driver not a
chauffeur but a policeman proud in uniform, another policeman perilously
dangling on the step at the back, and a glimpse of the prisoner. A
murderer, a burglar, a coiner cleverly trapped?

An enormous graystone church with a rigid spire; dim light in the
Parlors, and cheerful droning of choir-practise. The quivering green
mercury-vapor light of a photo-engraver's loft. Then the storming lights
of down-town; parked cars with ruby tail-lights; white arched entrances
to movie theaters, like frosty mouths of winter caves; electric
signs--serpents and little dancing men of fire; pink-shaded globes and
scarlet jazz music in a cheap up-stairs dance-hall; lights of Chinese
restaurants, lanterns painted with cherry-blossoms and with pagodas,
hung against lattices of lustrous gold and black. Small dirty lamps in
small stinking lunchrooms. The smart shopping-district, with rich and
quiet light on crystal pendants and furs and suave surfaces of polished
wood in velvet-hung reticent windows. High above the street, an
unexpected square hanging in the darkness, the window of an office where
some one was working late, for a reason unknown and stimulating. A man
meshed in bankruptcy, an ambitious boy, an oil-man suddenly become rich?

The air was shrewd, the snow was deep in uncleared alleys, and beyond
the city, Babbitt knew, were hillsides of snow-drift among wintry oaks,
and the curving ice-enchanted river.

He loved his city with passionate wonder. He lost the accumulated
weariness of business--worry and expansive oratory; he felt young and
potential. He was ambitious. It was not enough to be a Vergil Gunch,
an Orville Jones. No. "They're bully fellows, simply lovely, but they
haven't got any finesse." No. He was going to be an Eathorne; delicately
rigorous, coldly powerful.

"That's the stuff. The wallop in the velvet mitt. Not let anybody
get fresh with you. Been getting careless about my diction. Slang.
Colloquial. Cut it out. I was first-rate at rhetoric in college. Themes
on--Anyway, not bad. Had too much of this hooptedoodle and good-fellow
stuff. I--Why couldn't I organize a bank of my own some day? And Ted
succeed me!"

He drove happily home, and to Mrs. Babbitt he was a William Washington
Eathorne, but she did not notice it.


III

Young Kenneth Escott, reporter on the Advocate-Times was appointed
press-agent of the Chatham Road Presbyterian Sunday School. He gave six
hours a week to it. At least he was paid for giving six hours a week.
He had friends on the Press and the Gazette and he was not (officially)
known as a press-agent. He procured a trickle of insinuating items
about neighborliness and the Bible, about class-suppers, jolly but
educational, and the value of the Prayer-life in attaining financial
success.

The Sunday School adopted Babbitt's system of military ranks. Quickened
by this spiritual refreshment, it had a boom. It did not become the
largest school in Zenith--the Central Methodist Church kept ahead of it
by methods which Dr. Drew scored as "unfair, undignified, un-American,
ungentlemanly, and unchristian"--but it climbed from fourth place to
second, and there was rejoicing in heaven, or at least in that portion
of heaven included in the parsonage of Dr. Drew, while Babbitt had much
praise and good repute.

He had received the rank of colonel on the general staff of the school.
He was plumply pleased by salutes on the street from unknown small
boys; his ears were tickled to ruddy ecstasy by hearing himself called
"Colonel;" and if he did not attend Sunday School merely to be thus
exalted, certainly he thought about it all the way there.

He was particularly pleasant to the press-agent, Kenneth Escott; he took
him to lunch at the Athletic Club and had him at the house for dinner.

Like many of the cocksure young men who forage about cities in apparent
contentment and who express their cynicism in supercilious slang, Escott
was shy and lonely. His shrewd starveling face broadened with joy at
dinner, and he blurted, "Gee whillikins, Mrs. Babbitt, if you knew how
good it is to have home eats again!"

Escott and Verona liked each other. All evening they "talked about
ideas." They discovered that they were Radicals. True, they were
sensible about it. They agreed that all communists were criminals;
that this vers libre was tommy-rot; and that while there ought to be
universal disarmament, of course Great Britain and the United States
must, on behalf of oppressed small nations, keep a navy equal to the
tonnage of all the rest of the world. But they were so revolutionary
that they predicted (to Babbitt's irritation) that there would some
day be a Third Party which would give trouble to the Republicans and
Democrats.

Escott shook hands with Babbitt three times, at parting.

Babbitt mentioned his extreme fondness for Eathorne.

Within a week three newspapers presented accounts of Babbitt's sterling
labors for religion, and all of them tactfully mentioned William
Washington Eathorne as his collaborator.

Nothing had brought Babbitt quite so much credit at the Elks, the
Athletic Club, and the Boosters'. His friends had always congratulated
him on his oratory, but in their praise was doubt, for even in speeches
advertising the city there was something highbrow and degenerate,
like writing poetry. But now Orville Jones shouted across the Athletic
dining-room, "Here's the new director of the First State Bank!" Grover
Butterbaugh, the eminent wholesaler of plumbers' supplies, chuckled,
"Wonder you mix with common folks, after holding Eathorne's hand!" And
Emil Wengert, the jeweler, was at last willing to discuss buying a house
in Dorchester.


IV

When the Sunday School campaign was finished, Babbitt suggested to
Kenneth Escott, "Say, how about doing a little boosting for Doc Drew
personally?"

Escott grinned. "You trust the doc to do a little boosting for himself,
Mr. Babbitt! There's hardly a week goes by without his ringing up the
paper to say if we'll chase a reporter up to his Study, he'll let us
in on the story about the swell sermon he's going to preach on the
wickedness of short skirts, or the authorship of the Pentateuch. Don't
you worry about him. There's just one better publicity-grabber in town,
and that's this Dora Gibson Tucker that runs the Child Welfare and the
Americanization League, and the only reason she's got Drew beaten is
because she has got SOME brains!"

"Well, now Kenneth, I don't think you ought to talk that way about the
doctor. A preacher has to watch his interests, hasn't he? You remember
that in the Bible about--about being diligent in the Lord's business, or
something?"

"All right, I'll get something in if you want me to, Mr. Babbitt, but
I'll have to wait till the managing editor is out of town, and then
blackjack the city editor."

Thus it came to pass that in the Sunday Advocate-Times, under a picture
of Dr. Drew at his earnestest, with eyes alert, jaw as granite, and
rustic lock flamboyant, appeared an inscription--a wood-pulp tablet
conferring twenty-four hours' immortality:


The Rev. Dr. John Jennison Drew, M.A., pastor of the beautiful
Chatham Road Presbyterian Church in lovely Floral Heights, is a wizard
soul-winner. He holds the local record for conversions. During his
shepherdhood an average of almost a hundred sin-weary persons per year
have declared their resolve to lead a new life and have found a harbor
of refuge and peace.

Everything zips at the Chatham Road Church. The subsidiary organizations
are keyed to the top-notch of efficiency. Dr. Drew is especially keen
on good congregational singing. Bright cheerful hymns are used at every
meeting, and the special Sing Services attract lovers of music and
professionals from all parts of the city.

On the popular lecture platform as well as in the pulpit Dr. Drew is
a renowned word-painter, and during the course of the year he receives
literally scores of invitations to speak at varied functions both here
and elsewhere.


V

Babbitt let Dr. Drew know that he was responsible for this tribute. Dr.
Drew called him "brother," and shook his hand a great many times.

During the meetings of the Advisory Committee, Babbitt had hinted that
he would be charmed to invite Eathorne to dinner, but Eathorne had
murmured, "So nice of you--old man, now--almost never go out." Surely
Eathorne would not refuse his own pastor. Babbitt said boyishly to Drew:

"Say, doctor, now we've put this thing over, strikes me it's up to the
dominie to blow the three of us to a dinner!"

"Bully! You bet! Delighted!" cried Dr. Drew, in his manliest way. (Some
one had once told him that he talked like the late President Roosevelt.)

"And, uh, say, doctor, be sure and get Mr. Eathorne to come. Insist
on it. It's, uh--I think he sticks around home too much for his own
health."

Eathorne came.

It was a friendly dinner. Babbitt spoke gracefully of the stabilizing
and educational value of bankers to the community. They were, he
said, the pastors of the fold of commerce. For the first time Eathorne
departed from the topic of Sunday Schools, and asked Babbitt about the
progress of his business. Babbitt answered modestly, almost filially.

A few months later, when he had a chance to take part in the Street
Traction Company's terminal deal, Babbitt did not care to go to his own
bank for a loan. It was rather a quiet sort of deal and, if it had come
out, the Public might not have understood. He went to his friend Mr.
Eathorne; he was welcomed, and received the loan as a private venture;
and they both profited in their pleasant new association.

After that, Babbitt went to church regularly, except on spring Sunday
mornings which were obviously meant for motoring. He announced to Ted,
"I tell you, boy, there's no stronger bulwark of sound conservatism than
the evangelical church, and no better place to make friends who'll
help you to gain your rightful place in the community than in your own
church-home!"

 Babbitt is unhappy that the McKelveys and their circle have not accepted him. In reaction to this snub, he strives even harder to become an even more prominent citizen. He continues to make speeches on important issues whenever the opportunity arises, and he is active in the Elks and other organizations to which he belongs. Babbitt is a member of one of Zenith's largest and richest churches -- Chatham Road Presbyterian. The eloquent and efficient pastor, the Reverend Doctor John Jennison Drew, is highly esteemed and respected by all the better people of the city. Reverend Drew is intelligent and amiable; he is a staunch defender of business and an advocate of modern, manly Christianity. One Sunday, after a particularly inspiring service, Dr. Drew has a private conference with Babbitt, Chum Frink, and William W. Eathorne, president of the First State Bank of Zenith, and the 71-year-old scion of one of the city's wealthiest and most ancient families. The pastor explains to the three men that he wants them to form a committee to devise ways to enlarge the Sunday School attendance and gain increased publicity for the church. Babbitt agrees to help, although he is the sort of man who has never bothered to think much about religion. Babbitt believes that churchgoing is a highly respectable activity to engage in and that it is good for prospective customers to see that he is an active churchgoer. He usually understands very little in the poetic and complicated sermons of Dr. Drew, but he feels that, in some mystical way, listening to them will do him good and draw him nearer to God. As a member of the Sunday School Advisory Committee, Babbitt spends several weeks observing the classes and examining the textbooks. He finds everything very sincere, very devout, and very dull. After reaching this conclusion, he spends a few evenings at home reading Sunday School journals and church magazines. He is deeply impressed by the intelligent and businesslike attitude toward Christianity that these publications demonstrate. Babbitt resolves to take an active part in the affairs of his church. One afternoon, there is a committee meeting in the imposing Eathorne mansion. Babbitt and Frink attend with an air of awe, for outsiders are rarely invited to this house. Eathorne outlines his ideas for the advancement of the Sunday School. Babbitt disagrees with him, however, and tactfully suggests his own program for church school improvement. Babbitt's system takes advantage of all the latest innovations in public relations and advertising. His ideas include the introduction of contests and a number of other educational novelties. Most of these promise to be effective in increasing attendance, although they have little to do with religion and might seem even a bit irreverent to some people. Eathorne turns out to be less conservative than Babbitt had suspected and enthusiastically agrees to the program. After the meeting ends, Babbitt takes a long drive home, exulting privately over his triumph. Following Babbitt's advice, Kenneth Escott, a young reporter on the Advocate-Times, is secretly hired as part-time press agent for the church. Not long afterward, articles praising Chatham Road Presbyterian and Dr. Drew begin to appear in all the city's newspapers. Babbitt's program is adopted in full by the Sunday School. Before long, attendance has leaped from fourth largest in the city to second largest. The pastor and all the members are very pleased with Babbitt's achievement. Babbitt brings Escott home for dinner once or twice, and the young reporter and Verona quickly become good friends; they share the same concern for "culture" and "serious ideas" and are both "sensible radicals." In order to please Babbitt, Escott continues arranging for Dr. Drew to get favorable publicity. After awhile, the pastor arranges a small dinner for the members of the Sunday School committee. Babbitt uses this opportunity to strengthen his acquaintance with Eathorne. Some months later, he takes advantage of this new friendship by taking out a private loan from Eathorne's bank in order to finance a dishonest and clandestine real-estate deal he is involved in. He and Eathorne both make a nice profit from this transaction. Babbitt continues to attend church whenever it is convenient, and he loudly announces to his family and friends that there is no better place to make respectable and profitable acquaintances than in church.

