Read Babbit for Free Online Page B

broken, silent, gray; a mystery, reputed to
have been a "crack" real-estate man with a firm of his own in
haughty Brooklyn; Chester Kirby Laylock, resident salesman out at
the Glen Oriole acreage development - an enthusiastic person with a
silky mustache and much family; Miss Theresa McGoun, the swift and
rather pretty stenographer; Miss Wilberta Bannigan, the thick,
slow, laborious accountant and file-clerk; and four freelance
part-time commission salesmen.
      As he looked from his own cage into the main room
Babbitt mourned, "McGoun's a good stenog., smart's a whip, but Stan
Graff and all those bums - " The zest of the spring morning was
smothered in the stale office air.
      Normally he admired the office, with a pleased
surprise that he should have created this sure lovely thing;
normally he was stimulated by the clean newness of it and the air
of bustle; but to-day it seemed flat - the tiled floor, like a
bathroom, the ocher-colored metal ceiling, the faded maps on the
hard plaster walls, the chairs of varnished pale oak, the desks and
filing-cabinets of steel painted in olive drab. It was a vault, a
steel chapel where loafing and laughter were raw sin.
      He hadn't even any satisfaction in the new
water-cooler! And it was the very best of water-coolers,
up-to-date, scientific, and right-thinking. It had cost a great
deal of money (in itself a virtue). It possessed a non-conducting
fiber ice-container, a porcelain water-jar (guaranteed hygienic), a
drip-less non-clogging sanitary faucet, and machine-painted
decorations in two tones of gold. He looked down the relentless
stretch of tiled floor at the water-cooler, and assured himself
that no tenant of the Reeves Building had a more expensive one, but
he could not recapture the feeling of social superiority it had
given him. He astoundingly grunted, "I'd like to beat it off to the
woods right now. And loaf all day. And go to Gunch's again
to-night, and play poker, and cuss as much as I feel like, and
drink a hundred and nine-thousand bottles of beer."
      He sighed; he read through his mail; he shouted
"Msgoun," which meant "Miss McGoun"; and began to dictate.
      This was his own version of his first letter:
      "Omar Gribble, send it to his office, Miss McGoun,
yours of twentieth to hand and in reply would say look here,
Gribble, I'm awfully afraid if we go on shilly-shallying like this
we'll just naturally lose the Allen sale, I had Allen up on carpet
day before yesterday and got right down to cases and think I can
assure you - uh, uh, no, change that: all my experience indicates
he is all right, means to do business, looked into his financial
record which is fine - that sentence seems to be a little balled
up, Miss McGoun; make a couple sentences out of it if you have to,
period, new paragraph.
      "He is perfectly willing to pro rate the special
assessment and strikes me, am dead sure there will be no difficulty
in getting him to pay for title insurance, so now for heaven's sake
let's get busy - no, make that: so now let's go to it and get down
- no, that's enough - you can tie those sentences up a little
better when you type 'em, Miss McGoun - your sincerely,
etcetera."
      This is the version of his letter which he received,
typed, from Miss McGoun that afternoon:
    BABBITT-THOMPSON REALTY CO.
    Homes for Folks
    Reeves Bldg., Oberlin Avenue & 3d St.,
N.E
    Zenith
      Omar Gribble, Esq., 376 North American Building,
Zenith.
      Dear Mr. Gribble:
      Your letter of the twentieth to hand. I must say I'm
awfully afraid that if we go on shilly-shallying like this we'll
just naturally lose the Allen sale. I had Allen up on the carpet
day before yesterday, and got right down to cases. All my
experience indicates that he means to do business. I have also
looked into his financial record, which is fine.
      He is perfectly willing to pro rate the special
assessment and there will be no difficulty in getting him to pay
for title insurance.
      SO LET'S GO! Yours