Sinclair Lewis - The Collected Works of Sinclair Lewis

SHORTCUT EDUCATIONAL PUB. CO.

Desk WA Sandpit, Iowa.

ARE YOU A 100 PERCENTER OR A 10 PERCENTER?”

Babbitt was again without a canon which would enable him to speak with authority. Nothing in motoring or real estate had indicated what a Solid Citizen and Regular Fellow ought to think about culture by mail. He began with hesitation:

“Well — sounds as if it covered the ground. It certainly is a fine thing to be able to orate. I've sometimes thought I had a little talent that way myself, and I know darn well that one reason why a fourflushing old back-number like Chan Mott can get away with it in real estate is just because he can make a good talk, even when he hasn't got a doggone thing to say! And it certainly is pretty cute the way they get out all these courses on various topics and subjects nowadays. I'll tell you, though: No need to blow in a lot of good money on this stuff when you can get a first-rate course in eloquence and English and all that right in your own school — and one of the biggest school buildings in the entire country!”

“That's so,” said Mrs. Babbitt comfortably, while Ted complained:

“Yuh, but Dad, they just teach a lot of old junk that isn't any practical use — except the manual training and typewriting and basketball and dancing — and in these correspondence-courses, gee, you can get all kinds of stuff that would come in handy. Say, listen to this one:

'CAN YOU PLAY A MAN'S PART?

'If you are walking with your mother, sister or best girl and some one passes a slighting remark or uses improper language, won't you be ashamed if you can't take her part? Well, can you?

'We teach boxing and self-defense by mail. Many pupils have written saying that after a few lessons they've outboxed bigger and heavier opponents. The lessons start with simple movements practised before your mirror — holding out your hand for a coin, the breast-stroke in swimming, etc. Before you realize it you are striking scientifically, ducking, guarding and feinting, just as if you had a real opponent before you.'”

“Oh, baby, maybe I wouldn't like that!” Ted chanted. “I'll tell the world! Gosh, I'd like to take one fellow I know in school that's always shooting off his mouth, and catch him alone — ”

“Nonsense! The idea! Most useless thing I ever heard of!” Babbitt fulminated.

“Well, just suppose I was walking with Mama or Rone, and somebody passed a slighting remark or used improper language. What would I do?”

“Why, you'd probably bust the record for the hundred-yard dash!”

“I WOULD not! I'd stand right up to any mucker that passed a slighting remark on MY sister and I'd show him — ”

“Look here, young Dempsey! If I ever catch you fighting I'll whale the everlasting daylights out of you — and I'll do it without practising holding out my hand for a coin before the mirror, too!”

“Why, Ted dear,” Mrs. Babbitt said placidly, “it's not at all nice, your talking of fighting this way!”

“Well, gosh almighty, that's a fine way to appreciate — And then suppose I was walking with YOU, Ma, and somebody passed a slighting remark — ”

“Nobody's going to pass no slighting remarks on nobody,” Babbitt observed, “not if they stay home and study their geometry and mind their own affairs instead of hanging around a lot of poolrooms and soda-fountains and places where nobody's got any business to be!”

“But gooooooosh, Dad, if they DID!”

Mrs. Babbitt chirped, “Well, if they did, I wouldn't do them the honor of paying any attention to them! Besides, they never do. You always hear about these women that get followed and insulted and all, but I don't believe a word of it, or it's their own fault, the way some women look at a person. I certainly never 've been insulted by — ”

“Aw shoot. Mother, just suppose you WERE sometime! Just SUPPOSE! Can't you suppose something? Can't you imagine things?”

“Certainly I can imagine things! The idea!”

“Certainly your mother can imagine things — and suppose things! Think you're the only member of this household that's got an imagination?” Babbitt demanded. “But what's the use of a lot of supposing? Supposing never gets you anywhere. No sense supposing when there's a lot of real facts to take into considera — ”

“Look here, Dad. Suppose — I mean, just — just suppose you were in your office and some rival real-estate man — ”

“Realtor!”

“ — some realtor that you hated came in — ”

“I don't hate any realtor.”

“But suppose you DID!”

“I don't intend to suppose anything of the kind! There's plenty of fellows in my profession that stoop and hate their competitors, but if you were a little older and understood business, instead of always going to the movies and running around with a lot of fool girls with their dresses up to their knees and powdered and painted and rouged and God knows what all as if they were chorus-girls, then you'd know — and you'd suppose — that if there's any one thing that I stand for in the real-estate circles of Zenith, it is that we ought to always speak of each other only in the friendliest terms and institute a spirit of brotherhood and cooperation, and so I certainly can't suppose and I can't imagine my hating any realtor, not even that dirty, fourflushing society sneak, Cecil Rountree!”

“But — ”

“And there's no If, And or But about it! But if I WERE going to lambaste somebody, I wouldn't require any fancy ducks or swimming-strokes before a mirror, or any of these doodads and flipflops! Suppose you were out some place and a fellow called you vile names. Think you'd want to box and jump around like a dancing-master? You'd just lay him out cold (at least I certainly hope any son of mine would!) and then you'd dust off your hands and go on about your business, and that's all there is to it, and you aren't going to have any boxing-lessons by mail, either!”

“Well but — Yes — I just wanted to show how many different kinds of correspondence-courses there are, instead of all the camembert they teach us in the High.”

“But I thought they taught boxing in the school gymnasium.”

“That's different. They stick you up there and some big stiff amuses himself pounding the stuffin's out of you before you have a chance to learn. Hunka! Not any! But anyway — Listen to some of these others.”

The advertisements were truly philanthropic. One of them bore the rousing headline: “Money! Money!! Money!!!” The second announced that “Mr. P. R., formerly making only eighteen a week in a barber shop, writes to us that since taking our course he is now pulling down $5,000 as an Osteo-vitalic Physician;” and the third that “Miss J. L., recently a wrapper in a store, is now getting Ten Real Dollars a day teaching our Hindu System of Vibratory Breathing and Mental Control.”

Ted had collected fifty or sixty announcements, from annual reference-books, from Sunday School periodicals, fiction-magazines, and journals of discussion. One benefactor implored, “Don't be a Wallflower — Be More Popular and Make More Money — YOU Can Ukulele or Sing Yourself into Society! By the secret principles of a Newly Discovered System of Music Teaching, any one — man, lady or child — can, without tiresome exercises, special training or long drawn out study, and without waste of time, money or energy, learn to play by note, piano, banjo, cornet, clarinet, saxophone, violin or drum, and learn sight-singing.”

The next, under the wistful appeal “Finger Print Detectives Wanted — Big Incomes!” confided: “YOU red-blooded men and women — this is the PROFESSION you have been looking for. There's MONEY in it, BIG money, and that rapid change of scene, that entrancing and compelling interest and fascination, which your active mind and adventurous spirit crave. Think of being the chief figure and directing factor in solving strange mysteries and baffling crimes. This wonderful profession brings you into contact with influential men on the basis of equality, and often calls upon you to travel everywhere, maybe to distant lands — all expenses paid. NO SPECIAL EDUCATION REQUIRED.”