the Public and yearned over its employees;
that all its stock was owned by Widows and Orphans; and that whatever it
desired to do would benefit property-owners by increasing rental values,
and help the poor by lowering rents. All his acquaintances turned
to Littlefield when they desired to know the date of the battle of
Saragossa, the definition of the word "sabotage," the future of the
German mark, the translation of "hinc illae lachrimae," or the number of
products of coal tar. He awed Babbitt by confessing that he often sat up
till midnight reading the figures and footnotes in Government reports,
or skimming (with amusement at the author's mistakes) the latest volumes
of chemistry, archeology, and ichthyology.

But Littlefield's great value was as a spiritual example. Despite
his strange learnings he was as strict a Presbyterian and as firm a
Republican as George F. Babbitt. He confirmed the business men in the
faith. Where they knew only by passionate instinct that their system of
industry and manners was perfect, Dr. Howard Littlefield proved it
to them, out of history, economics, and the confessions of reformed
radicals.

Babbitt had a good deal of honest pride in being the neighbor of such a
savant, and in Ted's intimacy with Eunice Littlefield. At sixteen
Eunice was interested in no statistics save those regarding the ages
and salaries of motion-picture stars, but--as Babbitt definitively put
it--"she was her father's daughter."

The difference between a light man like Sam Doppelbrau and a really fine
character like Littlefield was revealed in their appearances. Doppelbrau
was disturbingly young for a man of forty-eight. He wore his derby on
the back of his head, and his red face was wrinkled with meaningless
laughter. But Littlefield was old for a man of forty-two. He was tall,
broad, thick; his gold-rimmed spectacles were engulfed in the folds of
his long face; his hair was a tossed mass of greasy blackness; he puffed
and rumbled as he talked; his Phi Beta Kappa key shone against a spotty
black vest; he smelled of old pipes; he was altogether funereal
and archidiaconal; and to real-estate brokerage and the jobbing of
bathroom-fixtures he added an aroma of sanctity.

This morning he was in front of his house, inspecting the grass parking
between the curb and the broad cement sidewalk. Babbitt stopped his car
and leaned out to shout "Mornin'!" Littlefield lumbered over and stood
with one foot up on the runn