Babbit (7 page)

  He had heard it said that "conditions" in the County
Jail and the Zenith City Prison were not very "scientific;" he had,
with indignation at the criticism of Zenith, skimmed through a
report in which the notorious pessimist Seneca Doane, the radical
lawyer, asserted that to throw boys and young girls into a bull-pen
crammed with men suffering from syphilis, delirium tremens, and
insanity was not the perfect way of educating them. He had
controverted the report by growling, "Folks that think a jail ought
to be a bloomin' Hotel Thornleigh make me sick. If people don't
like a jail, let 'em behave 'emselves and keep out of it. Besides,
these reform cranks always exaggerate." That was the beginning and
quite completely the end of his investigations into Zenith's
charities and corrections; and as to the "vice districts" he
brightly expressed it, "Those are things that no decent man monkeys
with. Besides, smatter fact, I'll tell you confidentially: it's a
protection to our daughters and to decent women to have a district
where tough nuts can raise cain. Keeps 'em away from our own
homes."

  As to industrial conditions, however, Babbitt had
thought a great deal, and his opinions may be coordinated as
follows:

  "A good labor union is of value because it keeps out
radical unions, which would destroy property. No one ought to be
forced to belong to a union, however. All labor agitators who try
to force men to join a union should be hanged. In fact, just
between ourselves, there oughtn't to be any unions allowed at all;
and as it's the best way of fighting the unions, every business man
ought to belong to an employers'-association and to the Chamber of
Commerce. In union there is strength. So any selfish hog who
doesn't join the Chamber of Commerce ought to be forced to."

  In nothing - as the expert on whose advice families
moved to new neighborhoods to live there for a generation - was
Babbitt more splendidly innocent than in the science of sanitation.
He did not know a malaria-bearing mosquito from a bat; he knew
nothing about tests of drinking water; and in the matters of
plumbing and sewage he was as unlearned as he was voluble. He often
referred to the excellence of the bathrooms in the houses he sold.
He was fond of explaining why it was that no European ever bathed.
Some one had told him, when he was twenty-two, that all cesspools
were unhealthy, and he still denounced them. If a client
impertinently wanted him to sell a house which had a cesspool,
Babbitt always spoke about it - before accepting the house and
selling it.

  When he laid out the Glen Oriole acreage
development, when he ironed woodland and dipping meadow into a
glenless, orioleless, sunburnt flat prickly with small boards
displaying the names of imaginary streets, he righteously put in a
complete sewage-system. It made him feel superior; it enabled him
to sneer privily at the Martin Lumsen development, Avonlea, which
had a cesspool; and it provided a chorus for the full-page
advertisements in which he announced the beauty, convenience,
cheapness, and supererogatory healthfulness of Glen Oriole. The
only flaw was that the Glen Oriole sewers had insufficient outlet,
so that waste remained in them, not very agreeably, while the
Avonlea cesspool was a Waring septic tank.

  The whole of the Glen Oriole project was a
suggestion that Babbitt, though he really did hate men recognized
as swindlers, was not too unreasonably honest. Operators and buyers
prefer that brokers should not be in competition with them as
operators and buyers themselves, but attend to their clients'
interests only. It was supposed that the Babbitt-Thompson Company
were merely agents for Glen Oriole, serving the real owner, Jake
Offutt, but the fact was that Babbitt and Thompson owned sixty-two
per cent. of the Glen, the president and purchasing agent of the
Zenith Street Traction Company owned twenty-eight per cent., and
Jake Offutt (a gang-politician, a small manufacturer, a
tobacco-chewing old farceur who enjoyed dirty politics, business
diplomacy, and cheating at poker) had only ten per cent., which
Babbitt and the Traction officials had given to him for "fixing"
health inspectors and fire inspectors and a member of the State
Transportation Commission.

  But Babbitt was virtuous. He advocated, though he
did not practise, the prohibition of alcohol; he praised, though he
did not obey, the laws against motor-speeding; he paid his debts;
he contributed to the church, the Red Cross, and the Y. M. C. A.;
he followed the custom of his clan and cheated only as it was
sanctified by precedent; and he never descended to trickery -
though, as he explained to Paul Riesling:

  "Course I don't mean to say that every ad I write is
literally true or that I always believe everything I say when I
give some buyer a good strong selling-spiel. You see - you see it's
like this: In the first place, maybe the owner of the property
exaggerated when he put it into my hands, and it certainly isn't my
place to go proving my principal a liar! And then most folks are so
darn crooked themselves that they expect a fellow to do a little
lying, so if I was fool enough to never whoop the ante I'd get the
credit for lying anyway! In self-defense I got to toot my own horn,
like a lawyer defending a client - his bounden duty, ain't it, to
bring out the poor dub's good points? Why, the Judge himself would
bawl out a lawyer that didn't, even if they both knew the guy was
guilty! But even so, I don't pad out the truth like Cecil Rountree
or Thayer or the rest of these realtors. Fact, I think a fellow
that's willing to deliberately up and profit by lying ought to be
shot!"

  Babbitt's value to his clients was rarely better
shown than this morning, in the conference at eleven-thirty between
himself, Conrad Lyte, and Archibald Purdy.

  V

  Conrad Lyte was a real-estate speculator. He was a
nervous speculator. Before he gambled he consulted bankers,
lawyers, architects, contracting builders, and all of their clerks
and stenographers who were willing to be cornered and give him
advice. He was a bold entrepreneur, and he desired nothing more
than complete safety in his investments, freedom from attention to
details, and the thirty or forty per cent. profit which, according
to all authorities, a pioneer deserves for his risks and foresight.
He was a stubby man with a cap-like mass of short gray curls and
clothes which, no matter how well cut, seemed shaggy. Below his
eyes were semicircular hollows, as though silver dollars had been
pressed against them and had left an imprint.

  Particularly and always Lyte consulted Babbitt, and
trusted in his slow cautiousness.

  Six months ago Babbitt had learned that one
Archibald Purdy, a grocer in the indecisive residential district
known as Linton, was talking of opening a butcher shop beside his
grocery. Looking up the ownership of adjoining parcels of land,
Babbitt found that Purdy owned his present shop but did not own the
one available lot adjoining. He advised Conrad Lyte to purchase
this lot, for eleven thousand dollars, though an appraisal on a
basis of rents did not indicate its value as above nine thousand.
The rents, declared Babbitt, were too low; and by waiting they
could make Purdy come to their price. (This was Vision.) He had to
bully Lyte into buying. His first act as agent for Lyte was to
increase the rent of the battered store-building on the lot. The
tenant said a number of rude things, but he paid.

  Now, Purdy seemed ready to buy, and his delay was
going to cost him ten thousand extra dollars - the reward paid by
the community to Mr. Conrad Lyte for the virtue of employing a
broker who had Vision and who understood Talking Points, Strategic
Values, Key Situations, Underappraisals, and the Psychology of
Salesmanship.

  Lyte came to the conference exultantly. He was fond
of Babbitt, this morning, and called him "old hoss." Purdy, the
grocer. a long-nosed man and solemn, seemed to care less for
Babbitt and for Vision, but Babbitt met him at the street door of
the office and guided him toward the private room with affectionate
little cries of "This way, Brother Purdy!" He took from the
correspondence-file the entire box of cigars and forced them on his
guests. He pushed their chairs two inches forward and three inches
back, which gave an hospitable note, then leaned back in his
desk-chair and looked plump and jolly. But he spoke to the weakling
grocer with firmness.

  "Well, Brother Purdy, we been having some pretty
tempting offers from butchers and a slew of other folks for that
lot next to your store, but I persuaded Brother Lyte that we ought
to give you a shot at the property first. I said to Lyte, 'It'd be
a rotten shame,' I said, 'if somebody went and opened a combination
grocery and meat market right next door and ruined Purdy's nice
little business.' Especially - " Babbitt leaned forward, and his
voice was harsh, " - it would be hard luck if one of these
cash-and-carry chain-stores got in there and started cutting prices
below cost till they got rid of competition and forced you to the
wall!"

  Purdy snatched his thin hands from his pockets,
pulled up his trousers, thrust his hands back into his pockets,
tilted in the heavy oak chair, and tried to look amused, as he
struggled:

  "Yes, they're bad competition. But I guess you don't
realize the Pulling Power that Personality has in a neighborhood
business."

  The great Babbitt smiled. "That's so. Just as you
feel, old man. We thought we'd give you first chance. All right
then - "

  "Now look here!" Purdy wailed. "I know f'r a fact
that a piece of property 'bout same size, right near, sold for less
'n eighty-five hundred, 'twa'n't two years ago, and here you
fellows are asking me twenty-four thousand dollars! Why, I'd have
to mortgage - I wouldn't mind so much paying twelve thousand but -
Why good God, Mr. Babbitt, you're asking more 'n twice its value!
And threatening to ruin me if I don't take it!"

  "Purdy, I don't like your way of talking! I don't
like it one little bit! Supposing Lyte and I were stinking enough
to want to ruin any fellow human, don't you suppose we know it's to
our own selfish interest to have everybody in Zenith prosperous?
But all this is beside the point. Tell you what we'll do: We'll
come down to twenty-three thousand-five thousand down and the rest
on mortgage - and if you want to wreck the old shack and rebuild, I
guess I can get Lyte here to loosen up for a building-mortgage on
good liberal terms. Heavens, man, we'd be glad to oblige you! We
don't like these foreign grocery trusts any better 'n you do! But
it isn't reasonable to expect us to sacrifice eleven thousand or
more just for neighborliness, IS it! How about it, Lyte? You
willing to come down?"

  By warmly taking Purdy's part, Babbitt persuaded the
benevolent Mr. Lyte to reduce his price to twenty-one thousand
dollars. At the right moment Babbitt snatched from a drawer the
agreement he had had Miss McGoun type out a week ago and thrust it
into Purdy's hands. He genially shook his fountain pen to make
certain that it was flowing, handed it to Purdy, and approvingly
watched him sign.

  The work of the world was being done. Lyte had made
something over nine thousand dollars, Babbitt had made a
four-hundred-and-fifty dollar commission, Purdy had, by the
sensitive mechanism of modern finance, been provided with a
business-building, and soon the happy inhabitants of Linton would
have meat lavished upon them at prices only a little higher than
those down-town.

  It had been a manly battle, but after it Babbitt
drooped. This was the only really amusing contest he had been
planning. There was nothing ahead save details of leases,
appraisals, mortgages.

  He muttered, "Makes me sick to think of Lyte
carrying off most of the profit when I did all the work, the old
skinflint! And - What else have I got to do to-day? . . Like to
take a good long vacation. Motor trip. Something." He sprang up,
rekindled by the thought of lunching with Paul Riesling