me one. Got the best on the market, the
clerk said it was. Paid five bucks for it. Just wondering if I got
stuck. What do they charge for 'em at the store, Sid?"

Finkelstein asserted that five dollars was not too great a sum, not for
a really high-class lighter which was suitably nickeled and provided
with connections of the very best quality. "I always say--and believe
me, I base it on a pretty fairly extensive mercantile experience--the
best is the cheapest in the long run. Of course if a fellow wants to be
a Jew about it, he can get cheap junk, but in the long RUN, the cheapest
thing is--the best you can get! Now you take here just th' other day:
I got a new top for my old boat and some upholstery, and I paid out a
hundred and twenty-six fifty, and of course a lot of fellows would say
that was too much--Lord, if the Old Folks--they live in one of these
hick towns up-state and they simply can't get onto the way a city
fellow's mind works, and then, of course, they're Jews, and they'd
lie right down and die if they knew Sid had anted up a hundred and
twenty-six bones. But I don't figure I was stuck, George, not a bit.
Machine looks brand new now--not that it's so darned old, of course; had
it less 'n three years, but I give it hard service; never drive less
'n a hundred miles on Sunday and, uh--Oh, I don't really think you
got stuck, George. In the LONG run, the best is, you might say, it's
unquestionably the cheapest."

"That's right," said Vergil Gunch. "That's the way I look at it. If a
fellow is keyed up to what you might call intensive living, the way you
get it here in Zenith--all the hustle and mental activity that's going
on with a bunch of live-wires like the Boosters and here in the Z.A.C.,
why, he's got to save his nerves by having the best."

Babbitt nodded his head at every fifth word in the roaring rhythm; and
by the conclusion, in Gunch's renowned humorous vein, he was enchanted:

"Still, at that, George, don't know's you can afford it. I've heard your
business has been kind of under the eye of the gov'ment since you stole
the tail of Eathorne Park and sold it!"

"Oh, you're a great little josher, Verg. But when it comes to kidding,
how about this report that you stole the black marble steps off the
post-office and sold 'em for high-grade coal!" In delight Babbitt patted
Gunch's back, stroked his arm.

"That's all right, but what I want to know is: who's the real-estate
shark that bought that coa