Sinclair Lewis - The Collected Works of Sinclair Lewis

Gunch said nothing, and watched; and Babbitt knew that he was being watched.

III

As he was leaving the club Babbitt heard Chum Frink protesting to Gunch, “ — don't know what's got into him. Last Sunday Doc Drew preached a corking sermon about decency in business and Babbitt kicked about that, too. Near 's I can figure out — ”

Babbitt was vaguely frightened.

IV

He saw a crowd listening to a man who was talking from the rostrum of a kitchen-chair. He stopped his car. From newspaper pictures he knew that the speaker must be the notorious freelance preacher, Beecher Ingram, of whom Seneca Doane had spoken. Ingram was a gaunt man with flamboyant hair, weather-beaten cheeks, and worried eyes. He was pleading:

“ — if those telephone girls can hold out, living on one meal a day, doing their own washing, starving and smiling, you big hulking men ought to be able — ”

Babbitt saw that from the sidewalk Vergil Gunch was watching him. In vague disquiet he started the car and mechanically drove on, while Gunch's hostile eyes seemed to follow him all the way.

V

“There's a lot of these fellows,” Babbitt was complaining to his wife, “that think if workmen go on strike they're a regular bunch of fiends. Now, of course, it's a fight between sound business and the destructive element, and we got to lick the stuffin's out of 'em when they challenge us, but doggoned if I see why we can't fight like gentlemen and not go calling 'em dirty dogs and saying they ought to be shot down.”

“Why, George,” she said placidly, “I thought you always insisted that all strikers ought to be put in jail.”

“I never did! Well, I mean — Some of 'em, of course. Irresponsible leaders. But I mean a fellow ought to be broad-minded and liberal about things like — ”

“But dearie, I thought you always said these so-called 'liberal' people were the worst of — ”

“Rats! Woman never can understand the different definitions of a word. Depends on how you mean it. And it don't pay to be too cocksure about anything. Now, these strikers: Honest, they're not such bad people. Just foolish. They don't understand the complications of merchandizing and profit, the way we business men do, but sometimes I think they're about like the rest of us, and no more hogs for wages than we are for profits.”

“George! If people were to hear you talk like that — of course I KNOW you; I remember what a wild crazy boy you were; I know you don't mean a word you say — but if people that didn't understand you were to hear you talking, they'd think you were a regular socialist!”

“What do I care what anybody thinks? And let me tell you right now — I want you to distinctly understand I never was a wild crazy kid, and when I say a thing, I mean it, and I stand by it and — Honest, do you think people would think I was too liberal if I just said the strikers were decent?”

“Of course they would. But don't worry, dear; I know you don't mean a word of it. Time to trot up to bed now. Have you enough covers for to-night?”

On the sleeping-porch he puzzled, “She doesn't understand me. Hardly understand myself. Why can't I take things easy, way I used to?

“Wish I could go out to Senny Doane's house and talk things over with him. No! Suppose Verg Gunch saw me going in there!

“Wish I knew some really smart woman, and nice, that would see what I'm trying to get at, and let me talk to her and — I wonder if Myra's right? Could the fellows think I've gone nutty just because I'm broad-minded and liberal? Way Verg looked at me — ”

Table of Contents

I

Miss McGoun came into his private office at three in the afternoon with “Lissen, Mr. Babbitt; there's a Mrs. Judique on the 'phone — wants to see about some repairs, and the salesmen are all out. Want to talk to her?”

“All right.”

The voice of Tanis Judique was clear and pleasant. The black cylinder of the telephone-receiver seemed to hold a tiny animated image of her: lustrous eyes, delicate nose, gentle chin.

“This is Mrs. Judique. Do you remember me? You drove me up here to the Cavendish Apartments and helped me find such a nice flat.”

“Sure! Bet I remember! What can I do for you?”

“Why, it's just a little — I don't know that I ought to bother you, but the janitor doesn't seem to be able to fix it. You know my flat is on the top floor, and with these autumn rains the roof is beginning to leak, and I'd be awfully glad if — ”

“Sure! I'll come up and take a look at it.” Nervously, “When do you expect to be in?”

“Why, I'm in every morning.”

“Be in this afternoon, in an hour or so?”

“Ye-es. Perhaps I could give you a cup of tea. I think I ought to, after all your trouble.”

“Fine! I'll run up there soon as I can get away.”

He meditated, “Now there's a woman that's got refinement, savvy, CLASS! 'After all your trouble — give you a cup of tea.' She'd appreciate a fellow. I'm a fool, but I'm not such a bad cuss, get to know me. And not so much a fool as they think!”

The great strike was over, the strikers beaten. Except that Vergil Gunch seemed less cordial, there were no visible effects of Babbitt's treachery to the clan. The oppressive fear of criticism was gone, but a diffident loneliness remained. Now he was so exhilarated that, to prove he wasn't, he droned about the office for fifteen minutes, looking at blue-prints, explaining to Miss McGoun that this Mrs. Scott wanted more money for her house — had raised the asking-price — raised it from seven thousand to eighty-five hundred — would Miss McGoun be sure and put it down on the card — Mrs. Scott's house — raise. When he had thus established himself as a person unemotional and interested only in business, he sauntered out. He took a particularly long time to start his car; he kicked the tires, dusted the glass of the speedometer, and tightened the screws holding the wind-shield spot-light.

He drove happily off toward the Bellevue district, conscious of the presence of Mrs. Judique as of a brilliant light on the horizon. The maple leaves had fallen and they lined the gutters of the asphalted streets. It was a day of pale gold and faded green, tranquil and lingering. Babbitt was aware of the meditative day, and of the barrenness of Bellevue — blocks of wooden houses, garages, little shops, weedy lots. “Needs pepping up; needs the touch that people like Mrs. Judique could give a place,” he ruminated, as he rattled through the long, crude, airy streets. The wind rose, enlivening, keen, and in a blaze of well-being he came to the flat of Tanis Judique.

She was wearing, when she flutteringly admitted him, a frock of black chiffon cut modestly round at the base of her pretty throat. She seemed to him immensely sophisticated. He glanced at the cretonnes and colored prints in her living-room, and gurgled, “Gosh, you've fixed the place nice! Takes a clever woman to know how to make a home, all right!”

“You really like it? I'm so glad! But you've neglected me, scandalously. You promised to come some time and learn to dance.”

Rather unsteadily, “Oh, but you didn't mean it seriously!”

“Perhaps not. But you might have tried!”

“Well, here I've come for my lesson, and you might just as well prepare to have me stay for supper!”

They both laughed in a manner which indicated that of course he didn't mean it.

“But first I guess I better look at that leak.”

She climbed with him to the flat roof of the apartment-house a detached world of slatted wooden walks, clotheslines, water-tank in a penthouse. He poked at things with his toe, and sought to impress her by being learned about copper gutters, the desirability of passing plumbing pipes through a lead collar and sleeve and flashing them with copper, and the advantages of cedar over boiler-iron for roof-tanks.