land house, a photograph of a Rocky Mountain, or all four.)

It was a room as superior in comfort to the "parlor" of Babbitt's
boyhood as his motor was superior to his father's buggy. Though there
was nothing in the room that was interesting, there was nothing that
was offensive. It was as neat, and as negative, as a block of artificial
ice. The fireplace was unsoftened by downy ashes or by sooty brick; the
brass fire-irons were of immaculate polish; and the grenadier andirons
were like samples in a shop, desolate, unwanted, lifeless things of
commerce.

Against the wall was a piano, with another piano-lamp, but no one used
it save Tinka. The hard briskness of the phonograph contented them;
their store of jazz records made them feel wealthy and cultured; and all
they knew of creating music was the nice adjustment of a bamboo needle.
The books on the table were unspotted and laid in rigid parallels;
not one corner of the carpet-rug was curled; and nowhere was there
a hockey-stick, a torn picture-book, an old cap, or a gregarious and
disorganizing dog.

II

At home, Babbitt never read with absorption. He was concentrated enough
at the office but here he crossed his legs and fidgeted. When his story
was interesting he read the best, that is the funniest, paragraphs to
his wife; when it did not hold him he coughed, scratched his ankles and
his right ear, thrust his left thumb into his vest pocket, jingled his
silver, whirled the cigar-cutter and the keys on one end of his watch
chain, yawned, rubbed his nose, and found errands to do. He went
upstairs to put on his slippers--his elegant slippers of seal-brown,
shaped like medieval shoes. He brought up an apple from the barrel which
stood by the trunk-closet in the basement.

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away," he enlightened Mrs. Babbitt, for
quite the first time in fourteen hours.

"That's so."

"An apple is Nature's best regulator."

"Yes, it--"

"Trouble with women is, they never have sense enough to form regular
habits."

"Well, I--"

"Always nibbling and eating between meals."

"George!" She looked up from her reading. "Did you have a light lunch
to-day, like you were going to? I did!"

This malicious and unprovoked attack astounded him. "Well, maybe it
wasn't as light as--Went to lunch with Paul and didn't have much chance
to diet. Oh, you needn't to grin like a chessy cat! If it wasn't for me
watching out and keeping an eye on our diet--I'm the