As he drove he glanced with the fondness of familiarity at the buildings.
A stranger suddenly dropped into the business-center of
Zenith could not have told whether he was in a city of
Oregon or
Georgia,
Ohio or
Maine,
Oklahoma or
Manitoba. But to Babbitt every inch was individual and stirring. As always he noted that the
California Building across the way was three stories lower, therefore three stories less beautiful, than his own Reeves Building. As
always when he passed the Parthenon Shoe Shine Parlor, a one-story hut which beside the
granite and red-brick ponderousness of the old California Building resembled a bath-house under a cliff, he commented, "Gosh, ought to get my shoes shined this afternoon. Keep forgetting it." At the Simplex
Office Furniture Shop, the National Cash Register Agency, he yearned for a
dictaphone, for a
typewriter which would add and multiply, as a
poet yearns for
quartos or a
physician for
radium.
At the Nobby Men's Wear Shop he took his left hand off the
steering-wheel to touch his
scarf, and thought well of himself as one who bought expensive
ties "and could pay cash for 'em, too, by golly;" and at the United
Cigar Store, with its crimson and gold alertness, he reflected, "Wonder if I need some cigars--idiot--plumb forgot--going t' cut down my fool smoking." He looked at
his bank, the Miners' and Drovers' National, and considered how clever and solid he was to bank with so marbled an establishment. His high moment came in the clash of traffic when he was halted at the corner beneath the lofty Second
National Tower. His car was banked with four others in a line of
steel restless as
cavalry, while the cross town traffic,
limousines and enormous moving-vans and insistent motor-cycles, poured by; on the farther corner,
pneumatic riveters rang on the sun-plated skeleton of a new building; and out of this
tornado flashed the inspiration of a familiar face, and a fellow
Booster shouted, "H' are you, George!" Babbitt waved in neighborly affection, and slid on with the traffic as the
policeman lifted his hand. He noted how quickly his car picked up. He felt superior and powerful, like a shuttle of
polished steel darting in a vast machine.
As always he ignored the next two blocks, decayed blocks not yet reclaimed from the grime and shabbiness of the Zenith of 1885. While he was passing the five-and-ten-cent store, the Dakota Lodging House, Concordia Hall with its
lodge-rooms and the offices of
fortune-tellers and
chiropractors, he thought of how much money he made, and he boasted a little and worried a little and did old familiar sums:
"Four hundred fifty plunks this morning from the Lyte deal. But
taxes due. Let's see: I ought to pull out eight thousand net this year, and save fifteen
hundred of that--no, not if I put up
garage and--Let's see: six hundred and forty clear last month, and twelve times six-forty makes--makes--let see: six times twelve is seventy-two hundred and--Oh rats, anyway, I'll make eight
thousand--gee now, that's not so bad; mighty few fellows pulling down eight thousand dollars a year--eight thousand good hard iron dollars--bet there isn't more than five per cent. of the people in the whole
United States that
make more than Uncle George does, by golly! Right up at the top of the heap! But--Way expenses are--Family wasting
gasoline, and always dressed like
millionaires, and sending that eighty a month to Mother--And all these stenographers and salesmen gouging me for every cent they can get--"
The effect of his scientific budget-planning was that he felt at once triumphantly
wealthy and perilously
poor, and in the midst of these
dissertations he stopped his car, rushed into a small news-and-miscellany shop, and bought the electric cigar-lighter which he had coveted for a week. He dodged his conscience by being jerky and noisy, and by shouting at the clerk, "Guess this will prett' near pay for itself in matches, eh?"
It was a pretty thing, a nickeled
cylinder with an almost silvery socket, to be attached to the dashboard of his car. It was not only, as the
placard on the counter observed, "a
dandy little refinement, lending the last touch of class to a gentleman's auto," but a priceless time-saver. By freeing him from halting the car to light a match, it would in a month or two easily save ten
minutes.
As he drove on he glanced at it. "Pretty nice. Always wanted one," he said wistfully. "The one thing a
smoker needs, too."
Then he remembered that he had given up smoking.
"Darn it!" he mourned. "Oh well, I suppose I'll hit a cigar once in a while. And--Be a great
convenience for other folks. Might make just the difference in getting
chummy with some fellow that would put over a sale. And--Certainly looks nice there. Certainly is a mighty clever little
jigger. Gives the last touch of refinement and class. I--By golly, I guess I can afford it if I want
to! Not going to be the only member of this family that never has a single doggone
luxury!"
Thus, laden with
treasure, after three and a half blocks of romantic
adventure, he drove up to the club.
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