Chapter: THIS autumn a Mr. W. G. Harding, of Marion, Ohio, was appointed
President of the United States, but Zenith was less interested in the
national campaign than in the local election. Seneca Doane, though he
was a lawyer and a graduate of the State University, was candidate for
mayor of Zenith on an alarming labor ticket. To oppose him the Democrats
and Republicans united on Lucas Prout, a mattress-manufacturer with a
perfect record for sanity. Mr. Prout was supported by the banks, the
Chamber of Commerce, all the decent newspapers, and George F. Babbitt.

Babbitt was precinct-leader on Floral Heights, but his district was safe
and he longed for stouter battling. His convention paper had given him
the beginning of a reputation for oratory, so the Republican-Democratic
Central Committee sent him to the Seventh Ward and South Zenith, to
address small audiences of workmen and clerks, and wives uneasy with
their new votes. He acquired a fame enduring for weeks. Now and then a
reporter was present at one of his meetings, and the headlines (though
they were not very large) indicated that George F. Babbitt had addressed
Cheering Throng, and Distinguished Man of Affairs had pointed out the
Fallacies of Doane. Once, in the rotogravure section of the Sunday
Advocate-Times, there was a photograph of Babbitt and a dozen other
business men, with the caption "Leaders of Zenith Finance and Commerce
Who Back Prout."

He deserved his glory. He was an excellent campaigner. He had faith; he
was certain that if Lincoln were alive, he would be electioneering for
Mr. W. G. Harding--unless he came to Zenith and electioneered for
Lucas Prout. He did not confuse audiences by silly subtleties; Prout
represented honest industry, Seneca Doane represented whining laziness,
and you could take your choice. With his broad shoulders and vigorous
voice, he was obviously a Good Fellow; and, rarest of all, he really
liked people. He almost liked common workmen. He wanted them to be well
paid, and able to afford high rents--though, naturally, they must
not interfere with the reasonable profits of stockholders. Thus nobly
endowed, and keyed high by the discovery that he was a natural orator,
he was popular with audiences, and he raged through the campaign,
renowned not only in the Seventh and Eighth Wards but even in parts of
the Sixteenth.


II

Crowded in his car, they came driving up to Turnverein Hall, South
Zenith--Babbitt, his wife, Verona, Ted, and Paul and Zilla Riesling. The
hall was over a delicatessen shop, in a street banging with trolleys and
smelling of onions and gasoline and fried fish. A new appreciation of
Babbitt filled all of them, including Babbitt.

"Don't know how you keep it up, talking to three bunches in one evening.
Wish I had your strength," said Paul; and Ted exclaimed to Verona, "The
old man certainly does know how to kid these roughnecks along!"

Men in black sateen shirts, their faces new-washed but with a hint of
grime under their eyes, were loitering on the broad stairs up to
the hall. Babbitt's party politely edged through them and into the
whitewashed room, at the front of which was a dais with a red-plush
throne and a pine altar painted watery blue, as used nightly by the
Grand Masters and Supreme Potentates of innumerable lodges. The hall
was full. As Babbitt pushed through the fringe standing at the back, he
heard the precious tribute, "That's him!" The chairman bustled down the
center aisle with an impressive, "The speaker? All ready, sir! Uh--let's
see--what was the name, sir?"

Then Babbitt slid into a sea of eloquence:

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Sixteenth Ward, there is one who cannot be
with us here to-night, a man than whom there is no more stalwart Trojan
in all the political arena--I refer to our leader, the Honorable Lucas
Prout, standard-bearer of the city and county of Zenith. Since he is not
here, I trust that you will bear with me if, as a friend and neighbor,
as one who is proud to share with you the common blessing of being a
resident of the great city of Zenith, I tell you in all candor, honesty,
and sincerity how the issues of this critical campaign appear to one
plain man of business--to one who, brought up to the blessings of
poverty and of manual labor, has, even when Fate condemned him to sit
at a desk, yet never forgotten how it feels, by heck, to be up at
five-thirty and at the factory with the ole dinner-pail in his hardened
mitt when the whistle blew at seven, unless the owner sneaked in ten
minutes on us and blew it early! (Laughter.) To come down to the basic
and fundamental issues of this campaign, the great error, insincerely
promulgated by Seneca Doane--"

There were workmen who jeered--young cynical workmen, for the most part
foreigners, Jews, Swedes, Irishmen, Italians--but the older men, the
patient, bleached, stooped carpenters and mechanics, cheered him; and
when he worked up to his anecdote of Lincoln their eyes were wet.

Modestly, busily, he hurried out of the hall on delicious applause, and
sped off to his third audience of the evening. "Ted, you better drive,"
he said. "Kind of all in after that spiel. Well, Paul, how'd it go? Did
I get 'em?"

"Bully! Corking! You had a lot of pep."

Mrs. Babbitt worshiped, "Oh, it was fine! So clear and interesting, and
such nice ideas. When I hear you orating I realize I don't appreciate
how profoundly you think and what a splendid brain and vocabulary you
have. Just--splendid." But Verona was irritating. "Dad," she worried,
"how do you know that public ownership of utilities and so on and so
forth will always be a failure?"

Mrs. Babbitt reproved, "Rone, I should think you could see and realize
that when your father's all worn out with orating, it's no time to
expect him to explain these complicated subjects. I'm sure when he's
rested he'll be glad to explain it to you. Now let's all be quiet and
give Papa a chance to get ready for his next speech. Just think! Right
now they're gathering in Maccabee Temple, and WAITING for us!"


III

Mr. Lucas Prout and Sound Business defeated Mr. Seneca Doane and Class
Rule, and Zenith was again saved. Babbitt was offered several minor
appointments to distribute among poor relations, but he preferred
advance information about the extension of paved highways, and this a
grateful administration gave to him. Also, he was one of only nineteen
speakers at the dinner with which the Chamber of Commerce celebrated the
victory of righteousness.

His reputation for oratory established, at the dinner of the Zenith Real
Estate Board he made the Annual Address. The Advocate-Times reported
this speech with unusual fullness:

"One of the livest banquets that has recently been pulled off occurred
last night in the annual Get-Together Fest of the Zenith Real Estate
Board, held in the Venetian Ball Room of the O'Hearn House. Mine host
Gil O'Hearn had as usual done himself proud and those assembled feasted
on such an assemblage of plates as could be rivaled nowhere west of New
York, if there, and washed down the plenteous feed with the cup which
inspired but did not inebriate in the shape of cider from the farm
of Chandler Mott, president of the board and who acted as witty and
efficient chairman.

"As Mr. Mott was suffering from slight infection and sore throat, G.
F. Babbitt made the principal talk. Besides outlining the progress of
Torrensing real estate titles, Mr. Babbitt spoke in part as follows:

"'In rising to address you, with my impromptu speech carefully tucked
into my vest pocket, I am reminded of the story of the two Irishmen,
Mike and Pat, who were riding on the Pullman. Both of them, I forgot to
say, were sailors in the Navy. It seems Mike had the lower berth and by
and by he heard a terrible racket from the upper, and when he yelled up
to find out what the trouble was, Pat answered, "Shure an' bedad an' how
can I ever get a night's sleep at all, at all? I been trying to get into
this darned little hammock ever since eight bells!"

"'Now, gentlemen, standing up here before you, I feel a good deal like
Pat, and maybe after I've spieled along for a while, I may feel so darn
small that I'll be able to crawl into a Pullman hammock with no trouble
at all, at all!

"'Gentlemen, it strikes me that each year at this annual occasion when
friend and foe get together and lay down the battle-ax and let the waves
of good-fellowship waft them up the flowery slopes of amity, it
behooves us, standing together eye to eye and shoulder to shoulder as
fellow-citizens of the best city in the world, to consider where we are
both as regards ourselves and the common weal.

"'It is true that even with our 361,000, or practically 362,000,
population, there are, by the last census, almost a score of larger
cities in the United States. But, gentlemen, if by the next census we do
not stand at least tenth, then I'll be the first to request any knocker
to remove my shirt and to eat the same, with the compliments of G.
F. Babbitt, Esquire! It may be true that New York, Chicago, and
Philadelphia will continue to keep ahead of us in size. But aside from
these three cities, which are notoriously so overgrown that no decent
white man, nobody who loves his wife and kiddies and God's good
out-o'doors and likes to shake the hand of his neighbor in greeting,
would want to live in them--and let me tell you right here and now, I
wouldn't trade a high-class Zenith acreage development for the whole
length and breadth of Broadway or State Street!--aside from these three,
it's evident to any one with a head for facts that Zenith is the finest
example of American life and prosperity to be found anywhere.

"'I don't mean to say we're perfect. We've got a lot to do in the way
of extending the paving of motor boulevards, for, believe me, it's the
fellow with four to ten thousand a year, say, and an automobile and a
nice little family in a bungalow on the edge of town, that makes the
wheels of progress go round!

"'That's the type of fellow that's ruling America to-day; in fact, it's
the ideal type to which the entire world must tend, if there's to be a
decent, well-balanced, Christian, go-ahead future for this little old
planet! Once in a while I just naturally sit back and size up this Solid
American Citizen, with a whale of a lot of satisfaction.

"'Our Ideal Citizen--I picture him first and foremost as being busier
than a bird-dog, not wasting a lot of good time in day-dreaming or going
to sassiety teas or kicking about things that are none of his business,
but putting the zip into some store or profession or art. At night he
lights up a good cigar, and climbs into the little old 'bus, and maybe
cusses the carburetor, and shoots out home. He mows the lawn, or sneaks
in some practice putting, and then he's ready for dinner. After dinner
he tells the kiddies a story, or takes the family to the movies, or
plays a few fists of bridge, or reads the evening paper, and a
chapter or two of some good lively Western novel if he has a taste for
literature, and maybe the folks next-door drop in and they sit and visit
about their friends and the topics of the day. Then he goes happily to
bed, his conscience clear, having contributed his mite to the prosperity
of the city and to his own bank-account.

"'In politics and religion this Sane Citizen is the canniest man on
earth; and in the arts he invariably has a natural taste which makes him
pick out the best, every time. In no country in the world will you find
so many reproductions of the Old Masters and of well-known paintings on
parlor walls as in these United States. No country has anything like our
number of phonographs, with not only dance records and comic but also
the best operas, such as Verdi, rendered by the world's highest-paid
singers.

"'In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby
bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America
the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any
other decent business man; and I, for one, am only too glad that the man
who has the rare skill to season his message with interesting reading
matter and who shows both purpose and pep in handling his literary wares
has a chance to drag down his fifty thousand bucks a year, to mingle
with the biggest executives on terms of perfect equality, and to show
as big a house and as swell a car as any Captain of Industry! But, mind
you, it's the appreciation of the Regular Guy who I have been depicting
which has made this possible, and you got to hand as much credit to him
as to the authors themselves.

"'Finally, but most important, our Standardized Citizen, even if he is a
bachelor, is a lover of the Little Ones, a supporter of the hearthstone
which is the basic foundation of our civilization, first, last, and
all the time, and the thing that most distinguishes us from the decayed
nations of Europe.

"'I have never yet toured Europe--and as a matter of fact, I don't know
that I care to such an awful lot, as long as there's our own mighty
cities and mountains to be seen--but, the way I figure it out, there
must be a good many of our own sort of folks abroad. Indeed, one of
the most enthusiastic Rotarians I ever met boosted the tenets of
one-hundred-per-cent pep in a burr that smacked o' bonny Scutlond
and all ye bonny braes o' Bobby Burns. But same time, one thing that
distinguishes us from our good brothers, the hustlers over there, is
that they're willing to take a lot off the snobs and journalists and
politicians, while the modern American business man knows how to talk
right up for himself, knows how to make it good and plenty clear that
he intends to run the works. He doesn't have to call in some highbrow
hired-man when it's necessary for him to answer the crooked critics
of the sane and efficient life. He's not dumb, like the old-fashioned
merchant. He's got a vocabulary and a punch.

"'With all modesty, I want to stand up here as a representative
business man and gently whisper, "Here's our kind of folks! Here's the
specifications of the Standardized American Citizen! Here's the new
generation of Americans: fellows with hair on their chests and smiles
in their eyes and adding-machines in their offices. We're not doing any
boasting, but we like ourselves first-rate, and if you don't like us,
look out--better get under cover before the cyclone hits town!"

"'So! In my clumsy way I have tried to sketch the Real He-man, the
fellow with Zip and Bang. And it's because Zenith has so large a
proportion of such men that it's the most stable, the greatest of our
cities. New York also has its thousands of Real Folks, but New York is
cursed with unnumbered foreigners. So are Chicago and San Francisco.
Oh, we have a golden roster of cities--Detroit and Cleveland with their
renowned factories, Cincinnati with its great machine-tool and soap
products, Pittsburg and Birmingham with their steel, Kansas City and
Minneapolis and Omaha that open their bountiful gates on the bosom
of the ocean-like wheatlands, and countless other magnificent
sister-cities, for, by the last census, there were no less than
sixty-eight glorious American burgs with a population of over one
hundred thousand! And all these cities stand together for power and
purity, and against foreign ideas and communism--Atlanta with Hartford,
Rochester with Denver, Milwaukee with Indianapolis, Los Angeles with
Scranton, Portland, Maine, with Portland, Oregon. A good live wire from
Baltimore or Seattle or Duluth is the twin-brother of every like fellow
booster from Buffalo or Akron, Fort Worth or Oskaloosa!

"'But it's here in Zenith, the home for manly men and womanly women and
bright kids, that you find the largest proportion of these Regular Guys,
and that's what sets it in a class by itself; that's why Zenith will
be remembered in history as having set the pace for a civilization that
shall endure when the old time-killing ways are gone forever and the day
of earnest efficient endeavor shall have dawned all round the world!

"'Some time I hope folks will quit handing all the credit to a lot of
moth-eaten, mildewed, out-of-date, old, European dumps, and give proper
credit to the famous Zenith spirit, that clean fighting determination
to win Success that has made the little old Zip City celebrated in
every land and clime, wherever condensed milk and pasteboard cartons
are known! Believe me, the world has fallen too long for these worn-out
countries that aren't producing anything but bootblacks and scenery and
booze, that haven't got one bathroom per hundred people, and that don't
know a loose-leaf ledger from a slip-cover; and it's just about time for
some Zenithite to get his back up and holler for a show-down!

"'I tell you, Zenith and her sister-cities are producing a new type of
civilization. There are many resemblances between Zenith and these other
burgs, and I'm darn glad of it! The extraordinary, growing, and sane
standardization of stores, offices, streets, hotels, clothes, and
newspapers throughout the United States shows how strong and enduring a
type is ours.

"'I always like to remember a piece that Chum Frink wrote for the
newspapers about his lecture-tours. It is doubtless familiar to many of
you, but if you will permit me, I'll take a chance and read it. It's
one of the classic poems, like "If" by Kipling, or Ella Wheeler Wilcox's
"The Man Worth While"; and I always carry this clipping of it in my
note-book:


"When I am out upon the road, a poet with a pedler's load I mostly sing
a hearty song, and take a chew and hike along, a-handing out my samples
fine of Cheero Brand of sweet sunshine, and peddling optimistic pokes
and stable lines of japes and jokes to Lyceums and other folks, to
Rotarys, Kiwanis' Clubs, and feel I ain't like other dubs. And then old
Major Silas Satan, a brainy cuss who's always waitin', he gives his tail
a lively quirk, and gets in quick his dirty work. He fills me up with
mullygrubs; my hair the backward way he rubs; he makes me lonelier than
a hound, on Sunday when the folks ain't round. And then b' gosh, I would
prefer to never be a lecturer, a-ridin' round in classy cars and smoking
fifty-cent cigars, and never more I want to roam; I simply want to be
back home, a-eatin' flap jacks, hash, and ham, with folks who savvy whom
I am!

"But when I get that lonely spell, I simply seek the best hotel, no
matter in what town I be--St. Paul, Toledo, or K.C., in Washington,
Schenectady, in Louisville or Albany. And at that inn it hits my dome
that I again am right at home. If I should stand a lengthy spell in
front of that first-class hotel, that to the drummers loves to cater,
across from some big film theayter; if I should look around and buzz,
and wonder in what town I was, I swear that I could never tell! For all
the crowd would be so swell, in just the same fine sort of jeans they
wear at home, and all the queens with spiffy bonnets on their beans, and
all the fellows standing round a-talkin' always, I'll be bound, the same
good jolly kind of guff, 'bout autos, politics and stuff and baseball
players of renown that Nice Guys talk in my home town!

"Then when I entered that hotel, I'd look around and say, "Well, well!"
For there would be the same news-stand, same magazines and candies
grand, same smokes of famous standard brand, I'd find at home, I'll
tell! And when I saw the jolly bunch come waltzing in for eats at lunch,
and squaring up in natty duds to platters large of French Fried spuds,
why then I'd stand right up and bawl, "I've never left my home at all!"
And all replete I'd sit me down beside some guy in derby brown upon a
lobby chair of plush, and murmur to him in a rush, "Hello, Bill, tell
me, good old scout, how is your stock a-holdin' out?" Then we'd be off,
two solid pals, a-chatterin' like giddy gals of flivvers, weather, home,
and wives, lodge-brothers then for all our lives! So when Sam Satan
makes you blue, good friend, that's what I'd up and do, for in these
States where'er you roam, you never leave your home sweet home."


"'Yes, sir, these other burgs are our true partners in the great game
of vital living. But let's not have any mistake about this. I claim that
Zenith is the best partner and the fastest-growing partner of the whole
caboodle. I trust I may be pardoned if I give a few statistics to back
up my claims. If they are old stuff to any of you, yet the tidings of
prosperity, like the good news of the Bible, never become tedious to the
ears of a real hustler, no matter how oft the sweet story is told! Every
intelligent person knows that Zenith manufactures more condensed milk
and evaporated cream, more paper boxes, and more lighting-fixtures, than
any other city in the United States, if not in the world. But it is not
so universally known that we also stand second in the manufacture of
package-butter, sixth in the giant realm of motors and automobiles,
and somewhere about third in cheese, leather findings, tar roofing,
breakfast food, and overalls!

"'Our greatness, however, lies not alone in punchful prosperity but
equally in that public spirit, that forward-looking idealism and
brotherhood, which has marked Zenith ever since its foundation by the
Fathers. We have a right, indeed we have a duty toward our fair city,
to announce broadcast the facts about our high schools, characterized by
their complete plants and the finest school-ventilating systems in
the country, bar none; our magnificent new hotels and banks and the
paintings and carved marble in their lobbies; and the Second National
Tower, the second highest business building in any inland city in the
entire country. When I add that we have an unparalleled number of miles
of paved streets, bathrooms vacuum cleaners, and all the other signs
of civilization; that our library and art museum are well supported and
housed in convenient and roomy buildings; that our park-system is more
than up to par, with its handsome driveways adorned with grass,
shrubs, and statuary, then I give but a hint of the all round unlimited
greatness of Zenith!

"'I believe, however, in keeping the best to the last. When I remind you
that we have one motor car for every five and seven-eighths persons in
the city, then I give a rock-ribbed practical indication of the kind of
progress and braininess which is synonymous with the name Zenith!

"'But the way of the righteous is not all roses. Before I close I must
call your attention to a problem we have to face, this coming year. The
worst menace to sound government is not the avowed socialists but a
lot of cowards who work under cover--the long-haired gentry who
call themselves "liberals" and "radicals" and "non-partisan" and
"intelligentsia" and God only knows how many other trick names!
Irresponsible teachers and professors constitute the worst of this whole
gang, and I am ashamed to say that several of them are on the faculty of
our great State University! The U. is my own Alma Mater, and I am proud
to be known as an alumni, but there are certain instructors there who
seem to think we ought to turn the conduct of the nation over to hoboes
and roustabouts.

"'Those profs are the snakes to be scotched--they and all their
milk-and-water ilk! The American business man is generous to a
fault. But one thing he does demand of all teachers and lecturers and
journalists: if we're going to pay them our good money, they've got
to help us by selling efficiency and whooping it up for rational
prosperity! And when it comes to these blab-mouth, fault-finding,
pessimistic, cynical University teachers, let me tell you that during
this golden coming year it's just as much our duty to bring influence to
have those cusses fired as it is to sell all the real estate and gather
in all the good shekels we can.

"'Not till that is done will our sons and daughters see that the ideal
of American manhood and culture isn't a lot of cranks sitting around
chewing the rag about their Rights and their Wrongs, but a God-fearing,
hustling, successful, two-fisted Regular Guy, who belongs to some church
with pep and piety to it, who belongs to the Boosters or the Rotarians
or the Kiwanis, to the Elks or Moose or Red Men or Knights of Columbus
or any one of a score of organizations of good, jolly, kidding,
laughing, sweating, upstanding, lend-a-handing Royal Good Fellows,
who plays hard and works hard, and whose answer to his critics is a
square-toed boot that'll teach the grouches and smart alecks to respect
the He-man and get out and root for Uncle Samuel, U.S.A.!'"


IV

Babbitt promised to become a recognized orator. He entertained a Smoker
of the Men's Club of the Chatham Road presbyterian Church with Irish,
Jewish, and Chinese dialect stories.

But in nothing was he more clearly revealed as the Prominent Citizen
than in his lecture on "Brass Tacks Facts on Real Estate," as delivered
before the class in Sales Methods at the Zenith Y.M.C.A.

The Advocate-Times reported the lecture so fully that Vergil Gunch said
to Babbitt, "You're getting to be one of the classiest spellbinders in
town. Seems 's if I couldn't pick up a paper without reading about your
well-known eloquence. All this guff ought to bring a lot of business
into your office. Good work! Keep it up!"

"Go on, quit your kidding," said Babbitt feebly, but at this tribute
from Gunch, himself a man of no mean oratorical fame, he expanded with
delight and wondered how, before his vacation, he could have questioned
the joys of being a solid citizen.





HIS march to greatness was not without disastrous stumbling.

Fame did not bring the social advancement which the Babbitts deserved.
They were not asked to join the Tonawanda Country Club nor invited to
the dances at the Union. Himself, Babbitt fretted, he didn't "care a fat
hoot for all these highrollers, but the wife would kind of like to be
Among Those Present." He nervously awaited his university class-dinner
and an evening of furious intimacy with such social leaders as Charles
McKelvey the millionaire contractor, Max Kruger the banker, Irving Tate
the tool-manufacturer, and Adelbert Dobson the fashionable interior
decorator. Theoretically he was their friend, as he had been in college,
and when he encountered them they still called him "Georgie," but he
didn't seem to encounter them often, and they never invited him to
dinner (with champagne and a butler) at their houses on Royal Ridge.

All the week before the class-dinner he thought of them. "No reason why
we shouldn't become real chummy now!"


II

Like all true American diversions and spiritual outpourings, the
dinner of the men of the Class of 1896 was thoroughly organized. The
dinner-committee hammered like a sales-corporation. Once a week they
sent out reminders:

TICKLER NO. 3

Old man, are you going to be with us at the livest Friendship Feed the
alumni of the good old U have ever known? The alumnae of '08 turned out
60% strong. Are we boys going to be beaten by a bunch of skirts? Come
on, fellows, let's work up some real genuine enthusiasm and all boost
together for the snappiest dinner yet! Elegant eats, short ginger-talks,
and memories shared together of the brightest, gladdest days of life.


The dinner was held in a private room at the Union Club. The club was
a dingy building, three pretentious old dwellings knocked together, and
the entrance-hall resembled a potato cellar, yet the Babbitt who
was free of the magnificence of the Athletic Club entered with
embarrassment. He nodded to the doorman, an ancient proud negro with
brass buttons and a blue tail-coat, and paraded through the hall, trying
to look like a member.

Sixty men had come to the dinner. They made islands and eddies in
the hall; they packed the elevator and the corners of the private
dining-room. They tried to be intimate and enthusiastic. They appeared
to one another exactly as they had in college--as raw youngsters whose
present mustaches, baldnesses, paunches, and wrinkles were but jovial
disguises put on for the evening. "You haven't changed a particle!"
they marveled. The men whom they could not recall they addressed, "Well,
well, great to see you again, old man. What are you--Still doing the
same thing?"

Some one was always starting a cheer or a college song, and it was
always thinning into silence. Despite their resolution to be democratic
they divided into two sets: the men with dress-clothes and the men
without. Babbitt (extremely in dress-clothes) went from one group to the
other. Though he was, almost frankly, out for social conquest, he sought
Paul Riesling first. He found him alone, neat and silent.

Paul sighed, "I'm no good at this handshaking and 'well, look who's
here' bunk."

"Rats now, Paulibus, loosen up and be a mixer! Finest bunch of boys on
earth! Say, you seem kind of glum. What's matter?"

"Oh, the usual. Run-in with Zilla."

"Come on! Let's wade in and forget our troubles."

He kept Paul beside him, but worked toward the spot where Charles
McKelvey stood warming his admirers like a furnace.

McKelvey had been the hero of the Class of '96; not only football
captain and hammer-thrower but debater, and passable in what the State
University considered scholarship. He had gone on, had captured the
construction-company once owned by the Dodsworths, best-known pioneer
family of Zenith. He built state capitols, skyscrapers, railway
terminals. He was a heavy-shouldered, big-chested man, but not sluggish.
There was a quiet humor in his eyes, a syrup-smooth quickness in his
speech, which intimidated politicians and warned reporters; and in his
presence the most intelligent scientist or the most sensitive artist
felt thin-blooded, unworldly, and a little shabby. He was, particularly
when he was influencing legislatures or hiring labor-spies, very easy
and lovable and gorgeous. He was baronial; he was a peer in the rapidly
crystallizing American aristocracy, inferior only to the haughty Old
Families. (In Zenith, an Old Family is one which came to town before
1840.) His power was the greater because he was not hindered by
scruples, by either the vice or the virtue of the older Puritan
tradition.

McKelvey was being placidly merry now with the great, the manufacturers
and bankers, the land-owners and lawyers and surgeons who had chauffeurs
and went to Europe. Babbitt squeezed among them. He liked McKelvey's
smile as much as the social advancement to be had from his favor. If in
Paul's company he felt ponderous and protective, with McKelvey he felt
slight and adoring.

He heard McKelvey say to Max Kruger, the banker, "Yes, we'll put up Sir
Gerald Doak." Babbitt's democratic love for titles became a rich relish.
"You know, he's one of the biggest iron-men in England, Max. Horribly
well-off.... Why, hello, old Georgie! Say, Max, George Babbitt is
getting fatter than I am!"

The chairman shouted, "Take your seats, fellows!"

"Shall we make a move, Charley?" Babbitt said casually to McKelvey.

"Right. Hello, Paul! How's the old fiddler? Planning to sit anywhere
special, George? Come on, let's grab some seats. Come on, Max. Georgie,
I read about your speeches in the campaign. Bully work!"

After that, Babbitt would have followed him through fire. He was
enormously busy during the dinner, now bumblingly cheering Paul, now
approaching McKelvey with "Hear, you're going to build some piers in
Brooklyn," now noting how enviously the failures of the class, sitting
by themselves in a weedy group, looked up to him in his association with
the nobility, now warming himself in the Society Talk of McKelvey and
Max Kruger. They spoke of a "jungle dance" for which Mona Dodsworth
had decorated her house with thousands of orchids. They spoke, with an
excellent imitation of casualness, of a dinner in Washington at
which McKelvey had met a Senator, a Balkan princess, and an English
major-general. McKelvey called the princess "Jenny," and let it be known
that he had danced with her.

Babbitt was thrilled, but not so weighted with awe as to be silent. If
he was not invited by them to dinner, he was yet accustomed to talking
with bank-presidents, congressmen, and clubwomen who entertained poets.
He was bright and referential with McKelvey:

"Say, Charley, juh remember in Junior year how we chartered a sea-going
hack and chased down to Riverdale, to the big show Madame Brown used to
put on? Remember how you beat up that hick constabule that tried to run
us in, and we pinched the pants-pressing sign and took and hung it on
Prof. Morrison's door? Oh, gosh, those were the days!"

Those, McKelvey agreed, were the days.

Babbitt had reached "It isn't the books you study in college but the
friendships you make that counts" when the men at head of the table
broke into song. He attacked McKelvey:

"It's a shame, uh, shame to drift apart because our, uh, business
activities lie in different fields. I've enjoyed talking over the good
old days. You and Mrs. McKelvey must come to dinner some night."

Vaguely, "Yes, indeed--"

"Like to talk to you about the growth of real estate out beyond your
Grantsville warehouse. I might be able to tip you off to a thing or two,
possibly."

"Splendid! We must have dinner together, Georgie. Just let me know. And
it will be a great pleasure to have your wife and you at the house,"
said McKelvey, much less vaguely.

Then the chairman's voice, that prodigious voice which once had roused
them to cheer defiance at rooters from Ohio or Michigan or Indiana,
whooped, "Come on, you wombats! All together in the long yell!" Babbitt
felt that life would never be sweeter than now, when he joined with Paul
Riesling and the newly recovered hero, McKelvey, in:

Baaaaaattle-ax Get an ax, Bal-ax, Get-nax, Who, who? The U.! Hooroo!


III

The Babbitts invited the McKelveys to dinner, in early December, and the
McKelveys not only accepted but, after changing the date once or twice,
actually came.

The Babbitts somewhat thoroughly discussed the details of the dinner,
from the purchase of a bottle of champagne to the number of salted
almonds to be placed before each person. Especially did they mention the
matter of the other guests. To the last Babbitt held out for giving
Paul Riesling the benefit of being with the McKelveys. "Good old Charley
would like Paul and Verg Gunch better than some highfalutin' Willy
boy," he insisted, but Mrs. Babbitt interrupted his observations with,
"Yes--perhaps--I think I'll try to get some Lynnhaven oysters," and
when she was quite ready she invited Dr. J. T. Angus, the oculist, and a
dismally respectable lawyer named Maxwell, with their glittering wives.

Neither Angus nor Maxwell belonged to the Elks or to the Athletic Club;
neither of them had ever called Babbitt "brother" or asked his opinions
on carburetors. The only "human people" whom she invited, Babbitt
raged, were the Littlefields; and Howard Littlefield at times became so
statistical that Babbitt longed for the refreshment of Gunch's, "Well,
old lemon-pie-face, what's the good word?"

Immediately after lunch Mrs. Babbitt began to set the table for the
seven-thirty dinner to the McKelveys, and Babbitt was, by order, home at
four. But they didn't find anything for him to do, and three times Mrs.
Babbitt scolded, "Do please try to keep out of the way!" He stood in the
door of the garage, his lips drooping, and wished that Littlefield or
Sam Doppelbrau or somebody would come along and talk to him. He saw Ted
sneaking about the corner of the house.

"What's the matter, old man?" said Babbitt.

"Is that you, thin, owld one? Gee, Ma certainly is on the warpath!
I told her Rone and I would jus' soon not be let in on the fiesta
to-night, and she bit me. She says I got to take a bath, too. But, say,
the Babbitt men will be some lookers to-night! Little Theodore in a
dress-suit!"

"The Babbitt men!" Babbitt liked the sound of it. He put his arm about
the boy's shoulder. He wished that Paul Riesling had a daughter, so that
Ted might marry her. "Yes, your mother is kind of rouncing round, all
right," he said, and they laughed together, and sighed together, and
dutifully went in to dress.

The McKelveys were less than fifteen minutes late.

Babbitt hoped that the Doppelbraus would see the McKelveys' limousine,
and their uniformed chauffeur, waiting in front.

The dinner was well cooked and incredibly plentiful, and Mrs. Babbitt
had brought out her grandmother's silver candlesticks. Babbitt worked
hard. He was good. He told none of the jokes he wanted to tell. He
listened to the others. He started Maxwell off with a resounding, "Let's
hear about your trip to the Yellowstone." He was laudatory, extremely
laudatory. He found opportunities to remark that Dr. Angus was a
benefactor to humanity, Maxwell and Howard Littlefield profound
scholars, Charles McKelvey an inspiration to ambitious youth, and Mrs.
McKelvey an adornment to the social circles of Zenith, Washington, New
York, Paris, and numbers of other places.

But he could not stir them. It was a dinner without a soul. For no
reason that was clear to Babbitt, heaviness was over them and they spoke
laboriously and unwillingly.

He concentrated on Lucille McKelvey, carefully not looking at her
blanched lovely shoulder and the tawny silken bared which supported her
frock.

"I suppose you'll be going to Europe pretty soon again, won't you?" he
invited.

"I'd like awfully to run over to Rome for a few weeks."

"I suppose you see a lot of pictures and music and curios and everything
there."

"No, what I really go for is: there's a little trattoria on the Via
della Scrofa where you get the best fettuccine in the world."

"Oh, I--Yes. That must be nice to try that. Yes."

At a quarter to ten McKelvey discovered with profound regret that his
wife had a headache. He said blithely, as Babbitt helped him with his
coat, "We must lunch together some time, and talk over the old days."

When the others had labored out, at half-past ten, Babbitt turned to
his wife, pleading, "Charley said he had a corking time and we must
lunch--said they wanted to have us up to the house for dinner before
long."

She achieved, "Oh, it's just been one of those quiet evenings that are
often so much more enjoyable than noisy parties where everybody talks at
once and doesn't really settle down to-nice quiet enjoyment."

But from his cot on the sleeping-porch he heard her weeping, slowly,
without hope.


IV

For a month they watched the social columns, and waited for a return
dinner-invitation.

As the hosts of Sir Gerald Doak, the McKelveys were headlined all the
week after the Babbitts' dinner. Zenith ardently received Sir Gerald
(who had come to America to buy coal). The newspapers interviewed him
on prohibition, Ireland, unemployment, naval aviation, the rate of
exchange, tea-drinking versus whisky-drinking, the psychology of
American women, and daily life as lived by English county families. Sir
Gerald seemed to have heard of all those topics. The McKelveys gave him
a Singhalese dinner, and Miss Elnora Pearl Bates, society editor of the
Advocate-Times, rose to her highest lark-note. Babbitt read aloud at
breakfast-table:


'Twixt the original and Oriental decorations, the strange and delicious
food, and the personalities both of the distinguished guests, the
charming hostess and the noted host, never has Zenith seen a more
recherche affair than the Ceylon dinner-dance given last evening by Mr.
and Mrs. Charles McKelvey to Sir Gerald Doak. Methought as we--fortunate
one!--were privileged to view that fairy and foreign scene, nothing at
Monte Carlo or the choicest ambassadorial sets of foreign capitals could
be more lovely. It is not for nothing that Zenith is in matters social
rapidly becoming known as the choosiest inland city in the country.

Though he is too modest to admit it, Lord Doak gives a cachet to our
smart quartier such as it has not received since the ever-memorable
visit of the Earl of Sittingbourne. Not only is he of the British
peerage, but he is also, on dit, a leader of the British metal
industries. As he comes from Nottingham, a favorite haunt of Robin Hood,
though now, we are informed by Lord Doak, a live modern city of 275,573
inhabitants, and important lace as well as other industries, we like to
think that perhaps through his veins runs some of the blood, both virile
red and bonny blue, of that earlier lord o' the good greenwood, the
roguish Robin.

The lovely Mrs. McKelvey never was more fascinating than last evening
in her black net gown relieved by dainty bands of silver and at her
exquisite waist a glowing cluster of Aaron Ward roses.


Babbitt said bravely, "I hope they don't invite us to meet this Lord
Doak guy. Darn sight rather just have a nice quiet little dinner with
Charley and the Missus."

At the Zenith Athletic Club they discussed it amply. "I s'pose we'll
have to call McKelvey 'Lord Chaz' from now on," said Sidney Finkelstein.

"It beats all get-out," meditated that man of data, Howard Littlefield,
"how hard it is for some people to get things straight. Here they call
this fellow 'Lord Doak' when it ought to be 'Sir Gerald.'"

Babbitt marvelled, "Is that a fact! Well, well! 'Sir Gerald,' eh? That's
what you call um, eh? Well, sir, I'm glad to know that."

Later he informed his salesmen, "It's funnier 'n a goat the way
some folks that, just because they happen to lay up a big wad, go
entertaining famous foreigners, don't have any more idea 'n a rabbit how
to address 'em so's to make 'em feel at home!"

That evening, as he was driving home, he passed McKelvey's limousine
and saw Sir Gerald, a large, ruddy, pop-eyed, Teutonic Englishman whose
dribble of yellow mustache gave him an aspect sad and doubtful. Babbitt
drove on slowly, oppressed by futility. He had a sudden, unexplained,
and horrible conviction that the McKelveys were laughing at him.

He betrayed his depression by the violence with which he informed his
wife, "Folks that really tend to business haven't got the time to waste
on a bunch like the McKelveys. This society stuff is like any other
hobby; if you devote yourself to it, you get on. But I like to have a
chance to visit with you and the children instead of all this idiotic
chasing round."

They did not speak of the McKelveys again.


V

It was a shame, at this worried time, to have to think about the
Overbrooks.

Ed Overbrook was a classmate of Babbitt who had been a failure. He had
a large family and a feeble insurance business out in the suburb of
Dorchester. He was gray and thin and unimportant. He had always been
gray and thin and unimportant. He was the person whom, in any group,
you forgot to introduce, then introduced with extra enthusiasm. He had
admired Babbitt's good-fellowship in college, had admired ever since
his power in real estate, his beautiful house and wonderful clothes. It
pleased Babbitt, though it bothered him with a sense of responsibility.
At the class-dinner he had seen poor Overbrook, in a shiny blue serge
business-suit, being diffident in a corner with three other failures.
He had gone over and been cordial: "Why, hello, young Ed! I hear you're
writing all the insurance in Dorchester now. Bully work!"

They recalled the good old days when Overbrook used to write poetry.
Overbrook embarrassed him by blurting, "Say, Georgie, I hate to think
of how we been drifting apart. I wish you and Mrs. Babbitt would come to
dinner some night."

Babbitt boomed, "Fine! Sure! Just let me know. And the wife and I want
to have you at the house." He forgot it, but unfortunately Ed Overbrook
did not. Repeatedly he telephoned to Babbitt, inviting him to dinner.
"Might as well go and get it over," Babbitt groaned to his wife. "But
don't it simply amaze you the way the poor fish doesn't know the first
thing about social etiquette? Think of him 'phoning me, instead of his
wife sitting down and writing us a regular bid! Well, I guess
we're stuck for it. That's the trouble with all this class-brother
hooptedoodle."

He accepted Overbrook's next plaintive invitation, for an evening two
weeks off. A dinner two weeks off, even a family dinner, never seems
so appalling, till the two weeks have astoundingly disappeared and
one comes dismayed to the ambushed hour. They had to change the date,
because of their own dinner to the McKelveys, but at last they gloomily
drove out to the Overbrooks' house in Dorchester.

It was miserable from the beginning. The Overbrooks had dinner at
six-thirty, while the Babbitts never dined before seven. Babbitt
permitted himself to be ten minutes late. "Let's make it as short as
possible. I think we'll duck out quick. I'll say I have to be at the
office extra early to-morrow," he planned.

The Overbrook house was depressing. It was the second story of a wooden
two-family dwelling; a place of baby-carriages, old hats hung in
the hall, cabbage-smell, and a Family Bible on the parlor table. Ed
Overbrook and his wife were as awkward and threadbare as usual, and the
other guests were two dreadful families whose names Babbitt never caught
and never desired to catch. But he was touched, and disconcerted, by the
tactless way in which Overbrook praised him: "We're mighty proud to have
old George here to-night! Of course you've all read about his speeches
and oratory in the papers--and the boy's good-looking, too, eh?--but
what I always think of is back in college, and what a great old mixer he
was, and one of the best swimmers in the class."

Babbitt tried to be jovial; he worked at it; but he could find nothing
to interest him in Overbrook's timorousness, the blankness of the other
guests, or the drained stupidity of Mrs. Overbrook, with her spectacles,
drab skin, and tight-drawn hair. He told his best Irish story, but it
sank like soggy cake. Most bleary moment of all was when Mrs. Overbrook,
peering out of her fog of nursing eight children and cooking and
scrubbing, tried to be conversational.

"I suppose you go to Chicago and New York right along, Mr. Babbitt," she
prodded.

"Well, I get to Chicago fairly often."

"It must be awfully interesting. I suppose you take in all the
theaters."

"Well, to tell the truth, Mrs. Overbrook, thing that hits me best is a
great big beefsteak at a Dutch restaurant in the Loop!"

They had nothing more to say. Babbitt was sorry, but there was no
hope; the dinner was a failure. At ten, rousing out of the stupor of
meaningless talk, he said as cheerily as he could, "'Fraid we got to be
starting, Ed. I've got a fellow coming to see me early to-morrow." As
Overbrook helped him with his coat, Babbitt said, "Nice to rub up on the
old days! We must have lunch together, P.D.Q."

Mrs. Babbitt sighed, on their drive home, "It was pretty terrible. But
how Mr. Overbrook does admire you!"

"Yep. Poor cuss! Seems to think I'm a little tin archangel, and the
best-looking man in Zenith."

"Well, you're certainly not that but--Oh, Georgie, you don't suppose we
have to invite them to dinner at our house now, do we?"

"Ouch! Gaw, I hope not!"

"See here, now, George! You didn't say anything about it to Mr.
Overbrook, did you?"

"No! Gee! No! Honest, I didn't! Just made a bluff about having him to
lunch some time."

"Well.... Oh, dear.... I don't want to hurt their feelings. But I
don't see how I could stand another evening like this one. And suppose
somebody like Dr. and Mrs. Angus came in when we had the Overbrooks
there, and thought they were friends of ours!"

For a week they worried, "We really ought to invite Ed and his wife,
poor devils!" But as they never saw the Overbrooks, they forgot them,
and after a month or two they said, "That really was the best way, just
to let it slide. It wouldn't be kind to THEM to have them here. They'd
feel so out of place and hard-up in our home."

They did not speak of the Overbrooks again.





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!"

 Warren G. Harding is elected president, but Zenith is more concerned with its own mayoral race. Seneca Doane, a lawyer running on the labor ticket, runs against Lucas Prout, a conservative manufacturer of mattresses. Babbitt earns a reputation as an orator by delivering speeches in support of Prout's candidacy. Verona asks him to explain why a socialist policy should necessarily be doomed to failure, but Babbitt pleads that he is too worn out to "explain these complicated subjects." Prout defeats Doane, and Babbitt's fervent campaign work is rewarded with insider information about the "extension of paved highways." At the Annual Address for the Zenith Real Estate Board, Babbitt delivers a speech praising Zenith as "the finest example of American life and prosperity." When Vergil Gunch notes that the local paper frequently publishes portions of his speeches, Babbitt wonders why he was ever dissatisfied with his life. Babbitt is not invited to join the Tonawanda Country Club or the Union Club, so he places his hopes for social advancement on his college reunion, held at the Union Club. He makes a special effort to speak to Charles McKelvey, inviting him and his wife to dinner. McKelvey agrees only when Babbitt promises insider information about some real estate. However, the dinner goes badly, and the McKelveys leave as early as possible. Myra cries herself to sleep that night, and the McKelveys do not extend a return invitation for dinner. Ed Overbrook, one of Babbitt's college classmates, is considered a "failure." Eager to develop a relationship with Babbitt, Overbrook invites the Babbitts to dinner. Babbitt and Myra accept as reluctantly as the McKelveys accepted their invitation. The Overbrooks' dinner goes badly, and the Babbitts leave early without extending a return invitation. Babbitt throws himself into his various club meetings to assuage his disappointment regarding the McKelveys. The clubs are important to Zenith society because they provide men an escape from the fussy domestic sphere, as well as a means to network with other businessmen. Babbitt also spends his Sunday evenings with Riesling. When the Rieslings visit the Babbitts, even Zilla is silent while Riesling pours out his soul on his violin. Reverend John Jennison Drew, the pastor at Babbitt's church, invites Babbitt, Chum Frink, and William Eathorne into his office to discuss ways to promote the Sunday School. When Drew asks Babbitt to help him promote the Sunday School, Babbitt eagerly accepts the task. Babbitt attends the Sunday School classes, but he finds them as dull as the Sunday School classes of his youth. His interest in the project is sparked by the bustling business of Sunday School journals, which are written in a business-like language. Eathorne holds a meeting for the Sunday School committee in his mansion. Babbitt, conscious of Eathorne's status as a member of an old, wealthy Zenith family, curbs his impulse toward informal humor. Babbitt suggests that the Sunday School increase its attendance by giving out cash prizes or other similar awards to children who recruit new members. In addition, he suggests hiring a press agent to publicize the Sunday School in the paper and organizing the Sunday School into armies based on age. He suggests awarding military ranks to children based on the success of their recruitment efforts. To Babbitt's pleasure, Eathorne gives his approval to the suggestions. Babbitt hires the local newspaper reporter, Kenneth Escott, as press agent for the Sunday School. With Escott's help, the Sunday School achieves second place in Zenith for attendance. Escott and Verona meet and take a keen interest in one another, spending their time in the discussion of "Ideas." Babbitt's successful efforts in the Sunday School mission earn him high status in the church. He is successful in arranging a dinner that includes Eathorne, who later lends him money for a questionable business deal from which they mutually profit.

