Babbitt

"Well, just suppose I was walking with Mama or Rone, and somebody pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed a slighting remark--"

"n.o.body"s going to pa.s.s no slighting remarks on n.o.body," 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 n.o.body"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 compet.i.tors, 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 G.o.d 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 inst.i.tute 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts 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."

"Oh, boy! I guess that wins the fire-brick necklace! Wouldn"t it be swell to travel everywhere and nab some famous crook!" whooped Ted.

"Well, I don"t think much of that. Doggone likely to get hurt. Still, that music-study stunt might be pretty fair, though. There"s no reason why, if efficiency-experts put their minds to it the way they have to routing products in a factory, they couldn"t figure out some scheme so a person wouldn"t have to monkey with all this practising and exercises that you get in music." Babbitt was impressed, and he had a delightful parental feeling that they two, the men of the family, understood each other.

He listened to the notices of mail-box universities which taught Short-story Writing and Improving the Memory, Motion-picture-acting and Developing the Soul-power, Banking and Spanish, Chiropody and Photography, Electrical Engineering and Window-tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, Poultry-raising and Chemistry.

"Well--well--" Babbitt sought for adequate expression of his admiration.

"I"m a son of a gun! I knew this correspondence-school business had become a mighty profitable game--makes suburban real-estate look like two cents!--but I didn"t realize it"d got to be such a reg"lar key-industry! Must rank right up with groceries and movies. Always figured somebody"d come along with the brains to not leave education to a lot of bookworms and impractical theorists but make a big thing out of it. Yes, I can see how a lot of these courses might interest you. I must ask the fellows at the Athletic if they ever realized--But same time, Ted, you know how advertisers, I means some advertisers, exaggerate. I don"t know as they"d be able to jam you through these courses as fast as they claim they can."

"Oh sure, Dad; of course." Ted had the immense and joyful maturity of a boy who is respectfully listened to by his elders. Babbitt concentrated on him with grateful affection:

"I can see what an influence these courses might have on the whole educational works. Course I"d never admit it publicly--fellow like myself, a State U. graduate, it"s only decent and patriotic for him to blow his horn and boost the Alma Mater--but smatter of fact, there"s a whole lot of valuable time lost even at the U., studying poetry and French and subjects that never brought in anybody a cent. I don"t know but what maybe these correspondence-courses might prove to be one of the most important American inventions.

"Trouble with a lot of folks is: they"re so blame material; they don"t see the spiritual and mental side of American supremacy; they think that inventions like the telephone and the areoplane and wireless--no, that was a Wop invention, but anyway: they think these mechanical improvements are all that we stand for; whereas to a real thinker, he sees that spiritual and, uh, dominating movements like Efficiency, and Rotarianism, and Prohibition, and Democracy are what compose our deepest and truest wealth. And maybe this new principle in education-at-home may be another--may be another factor. I tell you, Ted, we"ve got to have Vision--"

"I think those correspondence-courses are terrible!"

The philosophers gasped. It was Mrs. Babbitt who had made this discord in their spiritual harmony, and one of Mrs. Babbitt"s virtues was that, except during dinner-parties, when she was transformed into a raging hostess, she took care of the house and didn"t bother the males by thinking. She went on firmly:

"It sounds awful to me, the way they coax those poor young folks to think they"re learning something, and n.o.body "round to help them and--You two learn so quick, but me, I always was slow. But just the same--"

Babbitt attended to her: "Nonsense! Get just as much, studying at home. You don"t think a fellow learns any more because he blows in his father"s hard-earned money and sits around in Morris chairs in a swell Harvard dormitory with pictures and shields and table-covers and those doodads, do you? I tell you, I"m a college man--I KNOW! There is one objection you might make though. I certainly do protest against any effort to get a lot of fellows out of barber shops and factories into the professions. They"re too crowded already, and what"ll we do for workmen if all those fellows go and get educated?"

Ted was leaning back, smoking a cigarette without reproof. He was, for the moment, sharing the high thin air of Babbitt"s speculation as though he were Paul Riesling or even Dr. Howard Littlefield. He hinted:

"Well, what do you think then, Dad? Wouldn"t it be a good idea if I could go off to China or some peppy place, and study engineering or something by mail?"

"No, and I"ll tell you why, son. I"ve found out it"s a mighty nice thing to be able to say you"re a B.A. Some client that doesn"t know what you are and thinks you"re just a plug business man, he gets to shooting off his mouth about economics or literature or foreign trade conditions, and you just ease in something like, "When I was in college--course I got my B.A. in sociology and all that junk--" Oh, it puts an awful crimp in their style! But there wouldn"t be any cla.s.s to saying "I got the degree of Stamp-licker from the Bezuzus Mail-order University!" You see--My dad was a pretty good old coot, but he never had much style to him, and I had to work darn hard to earn my way through college. Well, it"s been worth it, to be able to a.s.sociate with the finest gentlemen in Zenith, at the clubs and so on, and I wouldn"t want you to drop out of the gentlemen cla.s.s--the cla.s.s that are just as red-blooded as the Common People but still have power and personality. It would kind of hurt me if you did that, old man!"

"I know, Dad! Sure! All right. I"ll stick to it. Say! Gosh! Gee whiz! I forgot all about those kids I was going to take to the chorus rehearsal.

I"ll have to duck!"

"But you haven"t done all your home-work."

"Do it first thing in the morning."

"Well--"

Six times in the past sixty days Babbitt had stormed, "You will not "do it first thing in the morning"! You"ll do it right now!" but to-night he said, "Well, better hustle," and his smile was the rare shy radiance he kept for Paul Riesling.

IV

"Ted"s a good boy," he said to Mrs. Babbitt.