Chapter: BABBITT'S preparations for leaving the office to its feeble self during
the hour and a half of his lunch-period were somewhat less elaborate
than the plans for a general European war.

He fretted to Miss McGoun, "What time you going to lunch? Well, make
sure Miss Bannigan is in then. Explain to her that if Wiedenfeldt calls
up, she's to tell him I'm already having the title traced. And oh,
b' the way, remind me to-morrow to have Penniman trace it. Now if anybody
comes in looking for a cheap house, remember we got to shove that Bangor
Road place off onto somebody. If you need me, I'll be at the Athletic
Club. And--uh--And--uh--I'll be back by two."

He dusted the cigar-ashes off his vest. He placed a difficult unanswered
letter on the pile of unfinished work, that he might not fail to attend
to it that afternoon. (For three noons, now, he had placed the same
letter on the unfinished pile.) He scrawled on a sheet of yellow
backing-paper the memorandum: "See abt apt h drs," which gave him an
agreeable feeling of having already seen about the apartment-house
doors.

He discovered that he was smoking another cigar. He threw it away,
protesting, "Darn it, I thought you'd quit this darn smoking!" He
courageously returned the cigar-box to the correspondence-file, locked
it up, hid the key in a more difficult place, and raged, "Ought to take
care of myself. And need more exercise--walk to the club, every single
noon--just what I'll do--every noon--cut out this motoring all the time."

The resolution made him feel exemplary. Immediately after it he decided
that this noon it was too late to walk.

It took but little more time to start his car and edge it into the
traffic than it would have taken to walk the three and a half blocks to
the club.


II

As he drove he glanced with the fondness of familiarity at the
buildings.

A stranger suddenly dropped into the business-center of Zenith could not
have told whether he was in a city of Oregon or Georgia, Ohio or Maine,
Oklahoma or Manitoba. But to Babbitt every inch was individual and
stirring. As always he noted that the California Building across the way
was three stories lower, therefore three stories less beautiful, than
his own Reeves Building. As always when he passed the Parthenon Shoe
Shine Parlor, a one-story hut which beside the granite and red-brick
ponderousness of the old California Building resembled a bath-house
under a cliff, he commented, "Gosh, ought to get my shoes shined this
afternoon. Keep forgetting it." At the Simplex Office Furniture Shop,
the National Cash Register Agency, he yearned for a dictaphone, for a
typewriter which would add and multiply, as a poet yearns for quartos or
a physician for radium.

At the Nobby Men's Wear Shop he took his left hand off the
steering-wheel to touch his scarf, and thought well of himself as one
who bought expensive ties "and could pay cash for 'em, too, by golly;"
and at the United Cigar Store, with its crimson and gold alertness, he
reflected, "Wonder if I need some cigars--idiot--plumb forgot--going
t' cut down my fool smoking." He looked at his bank, the Miners' and
Drovers' National, and considered how clever and solid he was to bank
with so marbled an establishment. His high moment came in the clash
of traffic when he was halted at the corner beneath the lofty Second
National Tower. His car was banked with four others in a line of steel
restless as cavalry, while the cross town traffic, limousines and
enormous moving-vans and insistent motor-cycles, poured by; on the
farther corner, pneumatic riveters rang on the sun-plated skeleton of
a new building; and out of this tornado flashed the inspiration of
a familiar face, and a fellow Booster shouted, "H' are you, George!"
Babbitt waved in neighborly affection, and slid on with the traffic as
the policeman lifted his hand. He noted how quickly his car picked up.
He felt superior and powerful, like a shuttle of polished steel darting
in a vast machine.

As always he ignored the next two blocks, decayed blocks not yet
reclaimed from the grime and shabbiness of the Zenith of 1885. While
he was passing the five-and-ten-cent store, the Dakota Lodging House,
Concordia Hall with its lodge-rooms and the offices of fortune-tellers
and chiropractors, he thought of how much money he made, and he boasted
a little and worried a little and did old familiar sums:

"Four hundred fifty plunks this morning from the Lyte deal. But taxes
due. Let's see: I ought to pull out eight thousand net this year, and
save fifteen hundred of that--no, not if I put up garage and--Let's
see: six hundred and forty clear last month, and twelve times six-forty
makes--makes--let see: six times twelve is seventy-two hundred and--Oh
rats, anyway, I'll make eight thousand--gee now, that's not so bad;
mighty few fellows pulling down eight thousand dollars a year--eight
thousand good hard iron dollars--bet there isn't more than five per
cent. of the people in the whole United States that make more than
Uncle George does, by golly! Right up at the top of the heap! But--Way
expenses are--Family wasting gasoline, and always dressed like
millionaires, and sending that eighty a month to Mother--And all these
stenographers and salesmen gouging me for every cent they can get--"

The effect of his scientific budget-planning was that he felt at once
triumphantly wealthy and perilously poor, and in the midst of
these dissertations he stopped his car, rushed into a small
news-and-miscellany shop, and bought the electric cigar-lighter which
he had coveted for a week. He dodged his conscience by being jerky and
noisy, and by shouting at the clerk, "Guess this will prett' near pay
for itself in matches, eh?"

It was a pretty thing, a nickeled cylinder with an almost silvery
socket, to be attached to the dashboard of his car. It was not only, as
the placard on the counter observed, "a dandy little refinement,
lending the last touch of class to a gentleman's auto," but a priceless
time-saver. By freeing him from halting the car to light a match, it
would in a month or two easily save ten minutes.

As he drove on he glanced at it. "Pretty nice. Always wanted one," he
said wistfully. "The one thing a smoker needs, too."

Then he remembered that he had given up smoking.

"Darn it!" he mourned. "Oh well, I suppose I'll hit a cigar once in a
while. And--Be a great convenience for other folks. Might make just
the difference in getting chummy with some fellow that would put over
a sale. And--Certainly looks nice there. Certainly is a mighty clever
little jigger. Gives the last touch of refinement and class. I--By
golly, I guess I can afford it if I want to! Not going to be the only
member of this family that never has a single doggone luxury!"

Thus, laden with treasure, after three and a half blocks of romantic
adventure, he drove up to the club.


III

The Zenith Athletic Club is not athletic and it isn't exactly a club,
but it is Zenith in perfection. It has an active and smoke-misted
billiard room, it is represented by baseball and football teams, and in
the pool and the gymnasium a tenth of the members sporadically try to
reduce. But most of its three thousand members use it as a cafe in which
to lunch, play cards, tell stories, meet customers, and entertain out-of
town uncles at dinner. It is the largest club in the city, and its chief
hatred is the conservative Union Club, which all sound members of the
Athletic call "a rotten, snobbish, dull, expensive old hole--not one
Good Mixer in the place--you couldn't hire me to join." Statistics show
that no member of the Athletic has ever refused election to the Union,
and of those who are elected, sixty-seven per cent. resign from the
Athletic and are thereafter heard to say, in the drowsy sanctity of the
Union lounge, "The Athletic would be a pretty good hotel, if it were
more exclusive."

The Athletic Club building is nine stories high, yellow brick with
glassy roof-garden above and portico of huge limestone columns below.
The lobby, with its thick pillars of porous Caen stone, its pointed
vaulting, and a brown glazed-tile floor like well-baked bread-crust, is
a combination of cathedral-crypt and rathskellar. The members rush into
the lobby as though they were shopping and hadn't much time for it. Thus
did Babbitt enter, and to the group standing by the cigar-counter he
whooped, "How's the boys? How's the boys? Well, well, fine day!"

Jovially they whooped back--Vergil Gunch, the coal-dealer, Sidney
Finkelstein, the ladies'-ready-to-wear buyer for Parcher & Stein's
department-store, and Professor Joseph K. Pumphrey, owner of the Riteway
Business College and instructor in Public Speaking, Business English,
Scenario Writing, and Commercial Law. Though Babbitt admired this
savant, and appreciated Sidney Finkelstein as "a mighty smart buyer
and a good liberal spender," it was to Vergil Gunch that he turned with
enthusiasm. Mr. Gunch was president of the Boosters' Club, a weekly
lunch-club, local chapter of a national organization which promoted
sound business and friendliness among Regular Fellows. He was also no
less an official than Esteemed Leading Knight in the Benevolent and
Protective Order of Elks, and it was rumored that at the next election
he would be a candidate for Exalted Ruler. He was a jolly man, given to
oratory and to chumminess with the arts. He called on the famous
actors and vaudeville artists when they came to town, gave them cigars,
addressed them by their first names, and--sometimes--succeeded
in bringing them to the Boosters' lunches to give The Boys a Free
Entertainment. He was a large man with hair en brosse, and he knew the
latest jokes, but he played poker close to the chest. It was at his
party that Babbitt had sucked in the virus of to-day's restlessness.

Gunch shouted, "How's the old Bolsheviki? How do you feel, the morning
after the night before?"

"Oh, boy! Some head! That was a regular party you threw, Verg! Hope
you haven't forgotten I took that last cute little jack-pot!" Babbitt
bellowed. (He was three feet from Gunch.)

"That's all right now! What I'll hand you next time, Georgie! Say, juh
notice in the paper the way the New York Assembly stood up to the Reds?"

"You bet I did. That was fine, eh? Nice day to-day."

"Yes, it's one mighty fine spring day, but nights still cold."

"Yeh, you're right they are! Had to have coupla blankets last night,
out on the sleeping-porch. Say, Sid," Babbitt turned to Finkelstein, the
buyer, "got something wanta ask you about. I went out and bought me an
electric cigar-lighter for the car, this noon, and--"

"Good hunch!" said Finkelstein, while even the learned Professor
Pumphrey, a bulbous man with a pepper-and-salt cutaway and a pipe-organ
voice, commented, "That makes a dandy accessory. Cigar-lighter gives
tone to the dashboard."

"Yep, finally decided I'd buy me one. Got the best on the market, the
clerk said it was. Paid five bucks for it. Just wondering if I got
stuck. What do they charge for 'em at the store, Sid?"

Finkelstein asserted that five dollars was not too great a sum, not for
a really high-class lighter which was suitably nickeled and provided
with connections of the very best quality. "I always say--and believe
me, I base it on a pretty fairly extensive mercantile experience--the
best is the cheapest in the long run. Of course if a fellow wants to be
a Jew about it, he can get cheap junk, but in the long RUN, the cheapest
thing is--the best you can get! Now you take here just th' other day:
I got a new top for my old boat and some upholstery, and I paid out a
hundred and twenty-six fifty, and of course a lot of fellows would say
that was too much--Lord, if the Old Folks--they live in one of these
hick towns up-state and they simply can't get onto the way a city
fellow's mind works, and then, of course, they're Jews, and they'd
lie right down and die if they knew Sid had anted up a hundred and
twenty-six bones. But I don't figure I was stuck, George, not a bit.
Machine looks brand new now--not that it's so darned old, of course; had
it less 'n three years, but I give it hard service; never drive less
'n a hundred miles on Sunday and, uh--Oh, I don't really think you
got stuck, George. In the LONG run, the best is, you might say, it's
unquestionably the cheapest."

"That's right," said Vergil Gunch. "That's the way I look at it. If a
fellow is keyed up to what you might call intensive living, the way you
get it here in Zenith--all the hustle and mental activity that's going
on with a bunch of live-wires like the Boosters and here in the Z.A.C.,
why, he's got to save his nerves by having the best."

Babbitt nodded his head at every fifth word in the roaring rhythm; and
by the conclusion, in Gunch's renowned humorous vein, he was enchanted:

"Still, at that, George, don't know's you can afford it. I've heard your
business has been kind of under the eye of the gov'ment since you stole
the tail of Eathorne Park and sold it!"

"Oh, you're a great little josher, Verg. But when it comes to kidding,
how about this report that you stole the black marble steps off the
post-office and sold 'em for high-grade coal!" In delight Babbitt patted
Gunch's back, stroked his arm.

"That's all right, but what I want to know is: who's the real-estate
shark that bought that coal for his apartment-houses?"


"I guess that'll hold you for a while, George!" said Finkelstein. "I'll
tell you, though, boys, what I did hear: George's missus went into the
gents' wear department at Parcher's to buy him some collars, and before
she could give his neck-size the clerk slips her some thirteens. 'How
juh know the size?' says Mrs. Babbitt, and the clerk says, 'Men that
let their wives buy collars for 'em always wear thirteen, madam.' How's
that! That's pretty good, eh? How's that, eh? I guess that'll about fix
you, George!"

"I--I--" Babbitt sought for amiable insults in answer. He stopped,
stared at the door. Paul Riesling was coming in. Babbitt cried, "See you
later, boys," and hastened across the lobby. He was, just then, neither
the sulky child of the sleeping-porch, the domestic tyrant of the
breakfast table, the crafty money-changer of the Lyte-Purdy conference,
nor the blaring Good Fellow, the Josher and Regular Guy, of the Athletic
Club. He was an older brother to Paul Riesling, swift to defend him,
admiring him with a proud and credulous love passing the love of women.
Paul and he shook hands solemnly; they smiled as shyly as though they
had been parted three years, not three days--and they said:

"How's the old horse-thief?"

"All right, I guess. How're you, you poor shrimp?"

"I'm first-rate, you second-hand hunk o' cheese."

Reassured thus of their high fondness, Babbitt grunted, "You're a fine
guy, you are! Ten minutes late!" Riesling snapped, "Well, you're lucky
to have a chance to lunch with a gentleman!" They grinned and went into
the Neronian washroom, where a line of men bent over the bowls inset
along a prodigious slab of marble as in religious prostration before
their own images in the massy mirror. Voices thick, satisfied,
authoritative, hurtled along the marble walls, bounded from the ceiling
of lavender-bordered milky tiles, while the lords of the city, the
barons of insurance and law and fertilizers and motor tires, laid down
the law for Zenith; announced that the day was warm-indeed, indisputably
of spring; that wages were too high and the interest on mortgages too
low; that Babe Ruth, the eminent player of baseball, was a noble man;
and that "those two nuts at the Climax Vaudeville Theater this week
certainly are a slick pair of actors." Babbitt, though ordinarily his
voice was the surest and most episcopal of all, was silent. In the
presence of the slight dark reticence of Paul Riesling, he was awkward,
he desired to be quiet and firm and deft.

The entrance lobby of the Athletic Club was Gothic, the washroom Roman
Imperial, the lounge Spanish Mission, and the reading-room in
Chinese Chippendale, but the gem of the club was the dining-room, the
masterpiece of Ferdinand Reitman, Zenith's busiest architect. It was
lofty and half-timbered, with Tudor leaded casements, an oriel, a
somewhat musicianless musicians'-gallery, and tapestries believed
to illustrate the granting of Magna Charta. The open beams had
been hand-adzed at Jake Offutt's car-body works, the hinge; were of
hand-wrought iron, the wainscot studded with handmade wooden pegs, and
at one end of the room was a heraldic and hooded stone fireplace which
the club's advertising-pamphlet asserted to be not only larger than any
of the fireplaces in European castles but of a draught incomparably more
scientific. It was also much cleaner, as no fire had ever been built in
it.

Half of the tables were mammoth slabs which seated twenty or thirty men.
Babbitt usually sat at the one near the door, with a group including
Gunch, Finkelstein, Professor Pumphrey, Howard Littlefield, his
neighbor, T. Cholmondeley Frink, the poet and advertising-agent, and
Orville Jones, whose laundry was in many ways the best in Zenith. They
composed a club within the club, and merrily called themselves "The
Roughnecks." To-day as he passed their table the Roughnecks greeted him,
"Come on, sit in! You 'n' Paul too proud to feed with poor folks? Afraid
somebody might stick you for a bottle of Bevo, George? Strikes me you
swells are getting awful darn exclusive!"

He thundered, "You bet! We can't afford to have our reps ruined by being
seen with you tightwads!" and guided Paul to one of the small tables
beneath the musicians'-gallery. He felt guilty. At the Zenith Athletic
Club, privacy was very bad form. But he wanted Paul to himself.

That morning he had advocated lighter lunches and now he ordered nothing
but English mutton chop, radishes, peas, deep-dish apple pie, a bit of
cheese, and a pot of coffee with cream, adding, as he did invariably,
"And uh--Oh, and you might give me an order of French fried potatoes."
When the chop came he vigorously peppered it and salted it. He always
peppered and salted his meat, and vigorously, before tasting it.

Paul and he took up the spring-like quality of the spring, the virtues
of the electric cigar-lighter, and the action of the New York State
Assembly. It was not till Babbitt was thick and disconsolate with mutton
grease that he flung out:

"I wound up a nice little deal with Conrad Lyte this morning that put
five hundred good round plunks in my pocket. Pretty nice--pretty nice!
And yet--I don't know what's the matter with me to-day. Maybe it's an
attack of spring fever, or staying up too late at Verg Gunch's, or maybe
it's just the winter's work piling up, but I've felt kind of down in the
mouth all day long. Course I wouldn't beef about it to the fellows at
the Roughnecks' Table there, but you--Ever feel that way, Paul? Kind
of comes over me: here I've pretty much done all the things I ought to;
supported my family, and got a good house and a six-cylinder car, and
built up a nice little business, and I haven't any vices 'specially,
except smoking--and I'm practically cutting that out, by the way. And I
belong to the church, and play enough golf to keep in trim, and I only
associate with good decent fellows. And yet, even so, I don't know that
I'm entirely satisfied!"

It was drawled out, broken by shouts from the neighboring tables, by
mechanical love-making to the waitress, by stertorous grunts as the
coffee filled him with dizziness and indigestion. He was apologetic and
doubtful, and it was Paul, with his thin voice, who pierced the fog:

"Good Lord, George, you don't suppose it's any novelty to me to find
that we hustlers, that think we're so all-fired successful, aren't
getting much out of it? You look as if you expected me to report you as
seditious! You know what my own life's been."

"I know, old man."

"I ought to have been a fiddler, and I'm a pedler of tar-roofing! And
Zilla--Oh, I don't want to squeal, but you know as well as I do about
how inspiring a wife she is.... Typical instance last evening: We went
to the movies. There was a big crowd waiting in the lobby, us at the
tail-end. She began to push right through it with her 'Sir, how dare
you?' manner--Honestly, sometimes when I look at her and see how she's
always so made up and stinking of perfume and looking for trouble and
kind of always yelping, 'I tell yuh I'm a lady, damn yuh!'--why, I want
to kill her! Well, she keeps elbowing through the crowd, me after her,
feeling good and ashamed, till she's almost up to the velvet rope and
ready to be the next let in. But there was a little squirt of a man
there--probably been waiting half an hour--I kind of admired the little
cuss--and he turns on Zilla and says, perfectly polite, 'Madam, why are
you trying to push past me?' And she simply--God, I was so ashamed!--she
rips out at him, 'You're no gentleman,' and she drags me into it and
hollers, 'Paul, this person insulted me!' and the poor skate he got
ready to fight.

"I made out I hadn't heard them--sure! same as you wouldn't hear a
boiler-factory!--and I tried to look away--I can tell you exactly how
every tile looks in the ceiling of that lobby; there's one with brown
spots on it like the face of the devil--and all the time the people
there--they were packed in like sardines--they kept making remarks
about us, and Zilla went right on talking about the little chap, and
screeching that 'folks like him oughtn't to be admitted in a place
that's SUPPOSED to be for ladies and gentlemen,' and 'Paul, will you
kindly call the manager, so I can report this dirty rat?' and--Oof!
Maybe I wasn't glad when I could sneak inside and hide in the dark!

"After twenty-four years of that kind of thing, you don't expect me to
fall down and foam at the mouth when you hint that this sweet, clean,
respectable, moral life isn't all it's cracked up to be, do you? I can't
even talk about it, except to you, because anybody else would think I
was yellow. Maybe I am. Don't care any longer.... Gosh, you've had to
stand a lot of whining from me, first and last, Georgie!"

"Rats, now, Paul, you've never really what you could call whined.
Sometimes--I'm always blowing to Myra and the kids about what a whale of
a realtor I am, and yet sometimes I get a sneaking idea I'm not such a
Pierpont Morgan as I let on to be. But if I ever do help by jollying you
along, old Paulski, I guess maybe Saint Pete may let me in after all!"

"Yuh, you're an old blow-hard, Georgie, you cheerful cut-throat, but
you've certainly kept me going."

"Why don't you divorce Zilla?"

"Why don't I! If I only could! If she'd just give me the chance! You
couldn't hire her to divorce me, no, nor desert me. She's too fond of
her three squares and a few pounds of nut-center chocolates in between.
If she'd only be what they call unfaithful to me! George, I don't want
to be too much of a stinker; back in college I'd 've thought a man who
could say that ought to be shot at sunrise. But honestly, I'd be tickled
to death if she'd really go making love with somebody. Fat chance! Of
course she'll flirt with anything--you know how she holds hands and
laughs--that laugh--that horrible brassy laugh--the way she yaps, 'You
naughty man, you better be careful or my big husband will be after
you!'--and the guy looking me over and thinking, 'Why, you cute little
thing, you run away now or I'll spank you!' And she'll let him go just
far enough so she gets some excitement out of it and then she'll begin
to do the injured innocent and have a beautiful time wailing, 'I
didn't think you were that kind of a person.' They talk about these
demi-vierges in stories--"

"These WHATS?"

"--but the wise, hard, corseted, old married women like Zilla are worse
than any bobbed-haired girl that ever went boldly out into this-here
storm of life--and kept her umbrella slid up her sleeve! But rats, you
know what Zilla is. How she nags--nags--nags. How she wants everything I
can buy her, and a lot that I can't, and how absolutely unreasonable she
is, and when I get sore and try to have it out with her she plays the
Perfect Lady so well that even I get fooled and get all tangled up in
a lot of 'Why did you say's' and 'I didn't mean's.' I'll tell you,
Georgie: You know my tastes are pretty fairly simple--in the matter of
food, at least. Course, as you're always complaining, I do like decent
cigars--not those Flor de Cabagos you're smoking--"

"That's all right now! That's a good two-for. By the way, Paul, did I
tell you I decided to practically cut out smok--"

"Yes you--At the same time, if I can't get what I like, why, I can
do without it. I don't mind sitting down to burnt steak, with canned
peaches and store cake for a thrilling little dessert afterwards, but
I do draw the line at having to sympathize with Zilla because she's
so rotten bad-tempered that the cook has quit, and she's been so busy
sitting in a dirty lace negligee all afternoon, reading about some brave
manly Western hero, that she hasn't had time to do any cooking. You're
always talking about 'morals'--meaning monogamy, I suppose. You've been
the rock of ages to me, all right, but you're essentially a simp. You--"

"Where d' you get that 'simp,' little man? Let me tell you--"

"--love to look earnest and inform the world that it's the 'duty of
responsible business men to be strictly moral, as an example to the
community.' In fact you're so earnest about morality, old Georgie, that
I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath. All
right, you can--"

"Wait, wait now! What's--"

"--talk about morals all you want to, old thing, but believe me, if
it hadn't been for you and an occasional evening playing the violin to
Terrill O'Farrell's 'cello, and three or four darling girls that let me
forget this beastly joke they call 'respectable life,' I'd 've killed
myself years ago.

"And business! The roofing business! Roofs for cowsheds! Oh, I don't
mean I haven't had a lot of fun out of the Game; out of putting it over
on the labor unions, and seeing a big check coming in, and the business
increasing. But what's the use of it? You know, my business isn't
distributing roofing--it's principally keeping my competitors from
distributing roofing. Same with you. All we do is cut each other's
throats and make the public pay for it!"

"Look here now, Paul! You're pretty darn near talking socialism!"

"Oh yes, of course I don't really exactly mean that--I s'pose.
Course--competition--brings out the best--survival of the
fittest--but--But I mean: Take all these fellows we know, the kind
right here in the club now, that seem to be perfectly content with their
home-life and their businesses, and that boost Zenith and the Chamber
of Commerce and holler for a million population. I bet if you could
cut into their heads you'd find that one-third of 'em are sure-enough
satisfied with their wives and kids and friends and their offices; and
one-third feel kind of restless but won't admit it; and one-third are
miserable and know it. They hate the whole peppy, boosting, go-ahead
game, and they're bored by their wives and think their families are
fools--at least when they come to forty or forty-five they're bored--and
they hate business, and they'd go--Why do you suppose there's so many
'mysterious' suicides? Why do you suppose so many Substantial Citizens
jumped right into the war? Think it was all patriotism?"

Babbitt snorted, "What do you expect? Think we were sent into the world
to have a soft time and--what is it?--'float on flowery beds of ease'?
Think Man was just made to be happy?"

"Why not? Though I've never discovered anybody that knew what the deuce
Man really was made for!"

"Well we know--not just in the Bible alone, but it stands to reason--a
man who doesn't buckle down and do his duty, even if it does bore him
sometimes, is nothing but a--well, he's simply a weakling. Mollycoddle,
in fact! And what do you advocate? Come down to cases! If a man is bored
by his wife, do you seriously mean he has a right to chuck her and take
a sneak, or even kill himself?"

"Good Lord, I don't know what 'rights' a man has! And I don't know the
solution of boredom. If I did, I'd be the one philosopher that had the
cure for living. But I do know that about ten times as many people find
their lives dull, and unnecessarily dull, as ever admit it; and I do
believe that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead of
being nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice and
patient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we
might make life more fun."

They drifted into a maze of speculation. Babbitt was elephantishly
uneasy. Paul was bold, but not quite sure about what he was being bold.
Now and then Babbitt suddenly agreed with Paul in an admission which
contradicted all his defense of duty and Christian patience, and at each
admission he had a curious reckless joy. He said at last:

"Look here, old Paul, you do a lot of talking about kicking things in
the face, but you never kick. Why don't you?"

"Nobody does. Habit too strong. But--Georgie, I've been thinking of one
mild bat--oh, don't worry, old pillar of monogamy; it's highly proper.
It seems to be settled now, isn't it--though of course Zilla keeps
rooting for a nice expensive vacation in New York and Atlantic City,
with the bright lights and the bootlegged cocktails and a bunch of
lounge-lizards to dance with--but the Babbitts and the Rieslings are
sure-enough going to Lake Sunasquam, aren't we? Why couldn't you and I
make some excuse--say business in New York--and get up to Maine four or
five days before they do, and just loaf by ourselves and smoke and cuss
and be natural?"

"Great! Great idea!" Babbitt admired.

Not for fourteen years had he taken a holiday without his wife, and
neither of them quite believed they could commit this audacity. Many
members of the Athletic Club did go camping without their wives, but
they were officially dedicated to fishing and hunting, whereas the
sacred and unchangeable sports of Babbitt and Paul Riesling were
golfing, motoring, and bridge. For either the fishermen or the golfers
to have changed their habits would have been an infraction of their
self-imposed discipline which would have shocked all right-thinking and
regularized citizens.

Babbitt blustered, "Why don't we just put our foot down and say, 'We're
going on ahead of you, and that's all there is to it!' Nothing criminal
in it. Simply say to Zilla--"

"You don't say anything to Zilla simply. Why, Georgie, she's almost as
much of a moralist as you are, and if I told her the truth she'd believe
we were going to meet some dames in New York. And even Myra--she never
nags you, the way Zilla does, but she'd worry. She'd say, 'Don't you
WANT me to go to Maine with you? I shouldn't dream of going unless you
wanted me;' and you'd give in to save her feelings. Oh, the devil! Let's
have a shot at duck-pins."

During the game of duck-pins, a juvenile form of bowling, Paul was
silent. As they came down the steps of the club, not more than half an
hour after the time at which Babbitt had sternly told Miss McGoun he
would be back, Paul sighed, "Look here, old man, oughtn't to talked
about Zilla way I did."

"Rats, old man, it lets off steam."

"Oh, I know! After spending all noon sneering at the conventional stuff,
I'm conventional enough to be ashamed of saving my life by busting out
with my fool troubles!"

"Old Paul, your nerves are kind of on the bum. I'm going to take you
away. I'm going to rig this thing. I'm going to have an important deal
in New York and--and sure, of course!--I'll need you to advise me on the
roof of the building! And the ole deal will fall through, and there'll
be nothing for us but to go on ahead to Maine. I--Paul, when it comes
right down to it, I don't care whether you bust loose or not. I do like
having a rep for being one of the Bunch, but if you ever needed me
I'd chuck it and come out for you every time! Not of course but what
you're--course I don't mean you'd ever do anything that would put--that
would put a decent position on the fritz but--See how I mean? I'm kind
of a clumsy old codger, and I need your fine Eyetalian hand. We--Oh,
hell, I can't stand here gassing all day! On the job! S' long! Don't
take any wooden money, Paulibus! See you soon! S' long!"

 Before leaving the office for lunch, Babbitt hustles about importantly, giving unnecessary instructions to his employees. He lights a cigar, forgetting that he has just determined to give up smoking, and despite his many resolutions to get more exercise, he decides to drive to lunch, rather than walk three blocks. Before leaving the office for lunch, Babbitt hustles about importantly, giving unnecessary instructions to his employees. He lights a cigar, forgetting that he has just determined to give up smoking, and despite his many resolutions to get more exercise, he decides to drive to lunch, rather than walk three blocks. As Babbitt rides through the busy downtown area, he observes the buildings and streets with fond familiarity. The city is really no different from many others throughout America, but to him it is unique and a source of pride. While driving, he reviews the morning's transactions with pleasure and evaluates his financial condition. He feels that his income is more than sufficient, but also that his family is guilty of much foolish and wasteful spending. Despite his decision to cut out needless expenses, he stops and purchases a costly electric cigar lighter for the car, feeling that even if he does stop smoking, this would be an impressive luxury to show his friends and clients. Babbitt's luncheon appointment is at the Zenith Athletic Club, to which he and Paul both belong. It is the second most exclusive club in the city and all the most respectable business and professional men are members. Eventually Paul arrives, and when he and Babbitt enter the dining room, they are greeted boisterously by all their friends and are teased unmercifully when they decide to sit alone. Despite his resolution to diet, Babbitt orders a heavy, fattening lunch. While eating, he and Paul discuss business and politics until Paul finally confesses that Zilla, his wife, is still nagging him and that, as a result, he is beginning to despise her. He cites a few recent examples of his wife's cruelty and states that he is not satisfied with his life anyway, particularly because he always wanted to be a violinist and not a manufacturer. He longs to leave Zilla, but lacks the courage to do so. Babbitt and Paul have been friends since college and have a strong friendship. Although they are the same age, Babbitt has always viewed Paul as a younger brother and constantly seeks to provide him with a strong shoulder to lean upon. Now he gives Paul a good deal of conventional, moralistic advice that is of little real value, but nonetheless Paul gains confidence and faith from this display of friendship. Babbitt also tells Paul about the strange yearnings and feelings of discontent that he has been having lately. At Paul's suggestion, the two men decide that they will precede their families to Maine on their summer vacations in order to share some time together.

