p but the car his perilous excursion ashore.

Among the tremendous crises of each day none was more dramatic than
starting the engine. It was slow on cold mornings; there was the long,
anxious whirr of the starter; and sometimes he had to drip ether into
the cocks of the cylinders, which was so very interesting that at lunch
he would chronicle it drop by drop, and orally calculate how much each
drop had cost him.

This morning he was darkly prepared to find something wrong, and he felt
belittled when the mixture exploded sweet and strong, and the car didn't
even brush the door-jamb, gouged and splintery with many bruisings by
fenders, as he backed out of the garage. He was confused. He shouted
"Morning!" to Sam Doppelbrau with more cordiality than he had intended.

Babbitt's green and white Dutch Colonial house was one of three in that
block on Chatham Road. To the left of it was the residence of Mr. Samuel
Doppelbrau, secretary of an excellent firm of bathroom-fixture jobbers.
His was a comfortable house with no architectural manners whatever; a
large wooden box with a squat tower, a broad porch, and glossy paint
yellow as a yolk. Babbitt disapproved of Mr. and Mrs. Doppelbrau as
"Bohemian." From their house came midnight music and obscene laughter;
there were neighborhood rumors of bootlegged whisky and fast motor
rides. They furnished Babbitt with many happy evenings of discussion,
during which he announced firmly, "I'm not strait-laced, and I don't
mind seeing a fellow throw in a drink once in a while, but when it comes
to deliberately trying to get away with a lot of hell-raising all the
while like the Doppelbraus do, it's too rich for my blood!"

On the other side of Babbitt lived Howard Littlefield, Ph.D., in a
strictly modern house whereof the lower part was dark red tapestry
brick, with a leaded oriel, the upper part of pale stucco like spattered
clay, and the roof red-tiled. Littlefield was the Great Scholar of the
neighborhood; the authority on everything in the world except babies,
cooking, and motors. He was a Bachelor of Arts of Blodgett College,
and a Doctor of Philosophy in economics of Yale. He was the
employment-manager and publicity-counsel of the Zenith Street Traction
Company. He could, on ten hours' notice, appear before the board of
aldermen or the state legislature and prove, absolutely, with figures
all in rows and with precedents from Poland and New Zealand, that the
street-car company loved