Chapter: I

HIS wife was up when he came in. "Did you have a good time?" she
sniffed.

"I did not. I had a rotten time! Anything else I got to explain?"

"George, how can you speak like--Oh, I don't know what's come over you!"

"Good Lord, there's nothing come over me! Why do you look for trouble
all the time?" He was warning himself, "Careful! Stop being so
disagreeable. Course she feels it, being left alone here all evening."
But he forgot his warning as she went on:

"Why do you go out and see all sorts of strange people? I suppose you'll
say you've been to another committee-meeting this evening!"

"Nope. I've been calling on a woman. We sat by the fire and kidded each
other and had a whale of a good time, if you want to know!"

"Well--From the way you say it, I suppose it's my fault you went there!
I probably sent you!"

"You did!"

"Well, upon my word--"

"You hate 'strange people' as you call 'em. If you had your way, I'd be
as much of an old stick-in-the-mud as Howard Littlefield. You never want
to have anybody with any git to 'em at the house; you want a bunch of
old stiffs that sit around and gas about the weather. You're doing
your level best to make me old. Well, let me tell you, I'm not going to
have--"

Overwhelmed she bent to his unprecedented tirade, and in answer she
mourned:

"Oh, dearest, I don't think that's true. I don't mean to make you old,
I know. Perhaps you're partly right. Perhaps I am slow about getting
acquainted with new people. But when you think of all the dear good
times we have, and the supper-parties and the movies and all--"

With true masculine wiles he not only convinced himself that she had
injured him but, by the loudness of his voice and the brutality of his
attack, he convinced her also, and presently he had her apologizing for
his having spent the evening with Tanis. He went up to bed well pleased,
not only the master but the martyr of the household. For a distasteful
moment after he had lain down he wondered if he had been altogether
just. "Ought to be ashamed, bullying her. Maybe there is her side to
things. Maybe she hasn't had such a bloomin' hectic time herself. But I
don't care! Good for her to get waked up a little. And I'm going to keep
free. Of her and Tanis and the fellows at the club and everybody. I'm
going to run my own life!"


II

In this mood he was particularly objectionable at the Boosters' Club
lunch next day. They were addressed by a congressman who had just
returned from an exhaustive three-months study of the finances,
ethnology, political systems, linguistic divisions, mineral resources,
and agriculture of Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Bulgaria. He told them all about
those subjects, together with three funny stories about European
misconceptions of America and some spirited words on the necessity of
keeping ignorant foreigners out of America.

"Say, that was a mighty informative talk. Real he-stuff," said Sidney
Finkelstein.

But the disaffected Babbitt grumbled, "Four-flusher! Bunch of hot
air! And what's the matter with the immigrants? Gosh, they aren't
all ignorant, and I got a hunch we're all descended from immigrants
ourselves."

"Oh, you make me tired!" said Mr. Finkelstein.

Babbitt was aware that Dr. A. I. Dilling was sternly listening from
across the table. Dr. Dilling was one of the most important men in the
Boosters'. He was not a physician but a surgeon, a more romantic and
sounding occupation. He was an intense large man with a boiling of black
hair and a thick black mustache. The newspapers often chronicled his
operations; he was professor of surgery in the State University; he went
to dinner at the very best houses on Royal Ridge; and he was said to be
worth several hundred thousand dollars. It was dismaying to Babbitt to
have such a person glower at him. He hastily praised the congressman's
wit, to Sidney Finkelstein, but for Dr. Dilling's benefit.


III

That afternoon three men shouldered into Babbitt's office with the air
of a Vigilante committee in frontier days. They were large, resolute,
big-jawed men, and they were all high lords in the land of Zenith--Dr.
Dilling the surgeon, Charles McKelvey the contractor, and, most
dismaying of all, the white-bearded Colonel Rutherford Snow, owner of
the Advocate-Times. In their whelming presence Babbitt felt small and
insignificant.

"Well, well, great pleasure, have chairs, what c'n I do for you?" he
babbled.

They neither sat nor offered observations on the weather.

"Babbitt," said Colonel Snow, "we've come from the Good Citizens'
League. We've decided we want you to join. Vergil Gunch says you don't
care to, but I think we can show you a new light. The League is going to
combine with the Chamber of Commerce in a campaign for the Open Shop, so
it's time for you to put your name down."

In his embarrassment Babbitt could not recall his reasons for not
wishing to join the League, if indeed he had ever definitely known them,
but he was passionately certain that he did not wish to join, and at the
thought of their forcing him he felt a stirring of anger against even
these princes of commerce.

"Sorry, Colonel, have to think it over a little," he mumbled.

McKelvey snarled, "That means you're not going to join, George?"

Something black and unfamiliar and ferocious spoke from Babbitt: "Now,
you look here, Charley! I'm damned if I'm going to be bullied into
joining anything, not even by you plutes!"

"We're not bullying anybody," Dr. Dilling began, but Colonel Snow thrust
him aside with, "Certainly we are! We don't mind a little bullying, if
it's necessary. Babbitt, the G.C.L. has been talking about you a good
deal. You're supposed to be a sensible, clean, responsible man; you
always have been; but here lately, for God knows what reason, I hear
from all sorts of sources that you're running around with a loose
crowd, and what's a whole lot worse, you've actually been advocating and
supporting some of the most dangerous elements in town, like this fellow
Doane."

"Colonel, that strikes me as my private business."

"Possibly, but we want to have an understanding. You've stood in,
you and your father-in-law, with some of the most substantial and
forward-looking interests in town, like my friends of the Street
Traction Company, and my papers have given you a lot of boosts. Well,
you can't expect the decent citizens to go on aiding you if you intend
to side with precisely the people who are trying to undermine us."

Babbitt was frightened, but he had an agonized instinct that if he
yielded in this he would yield in everything. He protested:

"You're exaggerating, Colonel. I believe in being broad-minded
and liberal, but, of course, I'm just as much agin the cranks and
blatherskites and labor unions and so on as you are. But fact is, I
belong to so many organizations now that I can't do 'em justice, and I
want to think it over before I decide about coming into the G.C.L."

Colonel Snow condescended, "Oh, no, I'm not exaggerating! Why the doctor
here heard you cussing out and defaming one of the finest types of
Republican congressmen, just this noon! And you have entirely the wrong
idea about 'thinking over joining.' We're not begging you to join the
G.C.L.--we're permitting you to join. I'm not sure, my boy, but what
if you put it off it'll be too late. I'm not sure we'll want you then.
Better think quick--better think quick!"

The three Vigilantes, formidable in their righteousness, stared at him
in a taut silence. Babbitt waited through. He thought nothing at all,
he merely waited, while in his echoing head buzzed, "I don't want to
join--I don't want to join--I don't want to."

"All right. Sorry for you!" said Colonel Snow, and the three men
abruptly turned their beefy backs.


IV

As Babbitt went out to his car that evening he saw Vergil Gunch coming
down the block. He raised his hand in salutation, but Gunch ignored it
and crossed the street. He was certain that Gunch had seen him. He drove
home in sharp discomfort.

His wife attacked at once: "Georgie dear, Muriel Frink was in this
afternoon, and she says that Chum says the committee of this Good
Citizens' League especially asked you to join and you wouldn't. Don't
you think it would be better? You know all the nicest people belong, and
the League stands for--"

"I know what the League stands for! It stands for the suppression of
free speech and free thought and everything else! I don't propose to
be bullied and rushed into joining anything, and it isn't a question of
whether it's a good league or a bad league or what the hell kind of a
league it is; it's just a question of my refusing to be told I got to--"

"But dear, if you don't join, people might criticize you."

"Let 'em criticize!"

"But I mean NICE people!"

"Rats, I--Matter of fact, this whole League is just a fad. It's like
all these other organizations that start off with such a rush and let on
they're going to change the whole works, and pretty soon they peter out
and everybody forgets all about 'em!"

"But if it's THE fad now, don't you think you--"

"No, I don't! Oh, Myra, please quit nagging me about it. I'm sick of
hearing about the confounded G.C.L. I almost wish I'd joined it when
Verg first came around, and got it over. And maybe I'd 've come in
to-day if the committee hadn't tried to bullyrag me, but, by God, as
long as I'm a free-born independent American cit--"

"Now, George, you're talking exactly like the German furnace-man."

"Oh, I am, am I! Then, I won't talk at all!"

He longed, that evening, to see Tanis Judique, to be strengthened by
her sympathy. When all the family were up-stairs he got as far as
telephoning to her apartment-house, but he was agitated about it and
when the janitor answered he blurted, "Nev' mind--I'll call later," and
hung up the receiver.


V

If Babbitt had not been certain about Vergil Gunch's avoiding him, there
could be little doubt about William Washington Eathorne, next morning.
When Babbitt was driving down to the office he overtook Eathorne's car,
with the great banker sitting in anemic solemnity behind his chauffeur.
Babbitt waved and cried, "Mornin'!" Eathorne looked at him deliberately,
hesitated, and gave him a nod more contemptuous than a direct cut.

Babbitt's partner and father-in-law came in at ten:

"George, what's this I hear about some song and dance you gave Colonel
Snow about not wanting to join the G.C.L.? What the dickens you trying
to do? Wreck the firm? You don't suppose these Big Guns will stand your
bucking them and springing all this 'liberal' poppycock you been getting
off lately, do you?"

"Oh, rats, Henry T., you been reading bum fiction. There ain't any such
a thing as these plots to keep folks from being liberal. This is a free
country. A man can do anything he wants to."

"Course th' ain't any plots. Who said they was? Only if folks get an
idea you're scatter-brained and unstable, you don't suppose they'll want
to do business with you, do you? One little rumor about your being a
crank would do more to ruin this business than all the plots and stuff
that these fool story-writers could think up in a month of Sundays."

That afternoon, when the old reliable Conrad Lyte, the merry miser,
Conrad Lyte, appeared, and Babbitt suggested his buying a parcel of land
in the new residential section of Dorchester, Lyte said hastily, too
hastily, "No, no, don't want to go into anything new just now."

A week later Babbitt learned, through Henry Thompson, that the officials
of the Street Traction Company were planning another real-estate coup,
and that Sanders, Torrey and Wing, not the Babbitt-Thompson Company,
were to handle it for them. "I figure that Jake Offutt is kind of
leery about the way folks are talking about you. Of course Jake is a
rock-ribbed old die-hard, and he probably advised the Traction fellows
to get some other broker. George, you got to do something!" trembled
Thompson.

And, in a rush, Babbitt agreed. All nonsense the way people misjudged
him, but still--He determined to join the Good Citizens' League the
next time he was asked, and in furious resignation he waited. He wasn't
asked. They ignored him. He did not have the courage to go to the League
and beg in, and he took refuge in a shaky boast that he had "gotten
away with bucking the whole city. Nobody could dictate to him how he was
going to think and act!"

He was jarred as by nothing else when the paragon of stenographers, Miss
McGoun, suddenly left him, though her reasons were excellent--she needed
a rest, her sister was sick, she might not do any more work for six
months. He was uncomfortable with her successor, Miss Havstad. What
Miss Havstad's given name was, no one in the office ever knew. It seemed
improbable that she had a given name, a lover, a powder-puff, or a
digestion. She was so impersonal, this slight, pale, industrious Swede,
that it was vulgar to think of her as going to an ordinary home to eat
hash. She was a perfectly oiled and enameled machine, and she ought,
each evening, to have been dusted off and shut in her desk beside her
too-slim, too-frail pencil points. She took dictation swiftly, her
typing was perfect, but Babbitt became jumpy when he tried to work with
her. She made him feel puffy, and at his best-beloved daily jokes she
looked gently inquiring. He longed for Miss McGoun's return, and thought
of writing to her.

Then he heard that Miss McGoun had, a week after leaving him, gone over
to his dangerous competitors, Sanders, Torrey and Wing.

He was not merely annoyed; he was frightened. "Why did she quit, then?"
he worried. "Did she have a hunch my business is going on the rocks? And
it was Sanders got the Street Traction deal. Rats--sinking ship!"

Gray fear loomed always by him now. He watched Fritz Weilinger, the
young salesman, and wondered if he too would leave. Daily he fancied
slights. He noted that he was not asked to speak at the annual Chamber
of Commerce dinner. When Orville Jones gave a large poker party and he
was not invited, he was certain that he had been snubbed. He was afraid
to go to lunch at the Athletic Club, and afraid not to go. He believed
that he was spied on; that when he left the table they whispered about
him. Everywhere he heard the rustling whispers: in the offices of
clients, in the bank when he made a deposit, in his own office, in his
own home. Interminably he wondered what They were saying of him. All day
long in imaginary conversations he caught them marveling, "Babbitt?
Why, say, he's a regular anarchist! You got to admire the fellow for his
nerve, the way he turned liberal and, by golly, just absolutely runs his
life to suit himself, but say, he's dangerous, that's what he is, and
he's got to be shown up."

He was so twitchy that when he rounded a corner and chanced on two
acquaintances talking--whispering--his heart leaped, and he stalked
by like an embarrassed schoolboy. When he saw his neighbors Howard
Littlefield and Orville Jones together, he peered at them, went indoors
to escape their spying, and was miserably certain that they had been
whispering--plotting--whispering.

Through all his fear ran defiance. He felt stubborn. Sometimes he
decided that he had been a very devil of a fellow, as bold as Seneca
Doane; sometimes he planned to call on Doane and tell him what a
revolutionist he was, and never got beyond the planning. But just as
often, when he heard the soft whispers enveloping him he wailed, "Good
Lord, what have I done? Just played with the Bunch, and called down
Clarence Drum about being such a high-and-mighty sodger. Never catch ME
criticizing people and trying to make them accept MY ideas!"

He could not stand the strain. Before long he admitted that he would
like to flee back to the security of conformity, provided there was a
decent and creditable way to return. But, stubbornly, he would not be
forced back; he would not, he swore, "eat dirt."

Only in spirited engagements with his wife did these turbulent fears
rise to the surface. She complained that he seemed nervous, that
she couldn't understand why he did not want to "drop in at the
Littlefields'" for the evening. He tried, but he could not express to
her the nebulous facts of his rebellion and punishment. And, with Paul
and Tanis lost, he had no one to whom he could talk. "Good Lord, Tinka
is the only real friend I have, these days," he sighed, and he clung to
the child, played floor-games with her all evening.

He considered going to see Paul in prison, but, though he had a pale
curt note from him every week, he thought of Paul as dead. It was Tanis
for whom he was longing.

"I thought I was so smart and independent, cutting Tanis out, and I need
her, Lord how I need her!" he raged. "Myra simply can't understand. All
she sees in life is getting along by being just like other folks. But
Tanis, she'd tell me I was all right."

Then he broke, and one evening, late, he did run to Tanis. He had not
dared to hope for it, but she was in, and alone. Only she wasn't Tanis.
She was a courteous, brow-lifting, ice-armored woman who looked like
Tanis. She said, "Yes, George, what is it?" in even and uninterested
tones, and he crept away, whipped.

His first comfort was from Ted and Eunice Littlefield.

They danced in one evening when Ted was home from the university, and
Ted chuckled, "What's this I hear from Euny, dad? She says her dad says
you raised Cain by boosting old Seneca Doane. Hot dog! Give 'em fits!
Stir 'em up! This old burg is asleep!" Eunice plumped down on Babbitt's
lap, kissed him, nestled her bobbed hair against his chin, and crowed;
"I think you're lots nicer than Howard. Why is it," confidentially,
"that Howard is such an old grouch? The man has a good heart, and
honestly, he's awfully bright, but he never will learn to step on the
gas, after all the training I've given him. Don't you think we could do
something with him, dearest?"

"Why, Eunice, that isn't a nice way to speak of your papa," Babbitt
observed, in the best Floral Heights manner, but he was happy for
the first time in weeks. He pictured himself as the veteran liberal
strengthened by the loyalty of the young generation. They went out to
rifle the ice-box. Babbitt gloated, "If your mother caught us at this,
we'd certainly get our come-uppance!" and Eunice became maternal,
scrambled a terrifying number of eggs for them, kissed Babbitt on the
ear, and in the voice of a brooding abbess marveled, "It beats the devil
why feminists like me still go on nursing these men!"

Thus stimulated, Babbitt was reckless when he encountered Sheldon
Smeeth, educational director of the Y.M.C.A. and choir-leader of the
Chatham Road Church. With one of his damp hands Smeeth imprisoned
Babbitt's thick paw while he chanted, "Brother Babbitt, we haven't seen
you at church very often lately. I know you're busy with a multitude
of details, but you mustn't forget your dear friends at the old church
home."

Babbitt shook off the affectionate clasp--Sheldy liked to hold hands for
a long time--and snarled, "Well, I guess you fellows can run the show
without me. Sorry, Smeeth; got to beat it. G'day."

But afterward he winced, "If that white worm had the nerve to try to
drag me back to the Old Church Home, then the holy outfit must have been
doing a lot of talking about me, too."

He heard them whispering--whispering--Dr. John Jennison Drew,
Cholmondeley Frink, even William Washington Eathorne. The independence
seeped out of him and he walked the streets alone, afraid of men's
cynical eyes and the incessant hiss of whispering.

 On his return home, Babbitt finds Myra waiting for him. An argument ensues, during which Babbitt boldly announces that he has been seeing another woman -- drinking and doing all sorts of forbidden things. He justifies his actions by accusing Myra and all the other respectable people around him of being unimaginative bores. Myra admits that she may be partly at fault and she ends up apologizing to him for her deficiencies. Babbitt feels greatly relieved and satisfied at this development. At the Boosters' Club luncheon that week, a reactionary senator delivers a speech about his recent trip to Europe. Many of his statements are ignorant and bigoted. Babbitt criticizes his opinion on immigration and other matters, to the disgust of many of the other members. Later that day, a committee from the Good Citizens' League, made up of Charlie McKelvey and two other influential businessmen, calls on Babbitt. They deliver an ultimatum: either Babbitt join the League at once and support its policies or he will suffer the consequences. Babbitt tries to make them understand that his political and economic ideas are in accord with theirs, but he is not convincing. The League representatives demand that he join, but some perverse instinct will not allow Babbitt to agree to join. He feels that he must assert himself at all costs. He rejects their offer even though he is terribly frightened of what may happen. Babbitt soon learns the consequences of his refusal to join the Good Citizens' League; all of Zenith's responsible and influential people stop talking to him. He is cold-shouldered even by old friends like Vergil Gunch and Eathorne. At home, Myra suggests that perhaps he should join the League, but Babbitt refuses. He is not at peace, however, with his decision. In the next few days, Babbitt begins to lose customers, and some of his most faithful employees resign. The Street Traction Company, for which he has done profitable work, gives its most current business to a rival realtor. Wherever Babbitt goes, people whisper about him or watch him silently, and still no one speaks to him. The strain on him is unbearable; he longs to return to the path of respectability and conformity. He is even willing to join the League -- but only if he can do so with dignity. In his confusion, Babbitt tries to see Tanis, but she too is cold and unfriendly. His wife does not fully understand the situation and cannot help him. He has no one else to turn to. Babbitt's only support comes from Ted, who is home on a visit, and Eunice Littlefield. The two young people praise Babbitt for being so courageous and such a troublemaker, but they view his behavior as a kind of prank, not as a serious assertion of principle.

