Thompson.

And, in a rush, Babbitt agreed. All nonsense the way people misjudged
him, but still--He determined to join the Good Citizens' League the
next time he was asked, and in furious resignation he waited. He wasn't
asked. They ignored him. He did not have the courage to go to the League
and beg in, and he took refuge in a shaky boast that he had "gotten
away with bucking the whole city. Nobody could dictate to him how he was
going to think and act!"

He was jarred as by nothing else when the paragon of stenographers, Miss
McGoun, suddenly left him, though her reasons were excellent--she needed
a rest, her sister was sick, she might not do any more work for six
months. He was uncomfortable with her successor, Miss Havstad. What
Miss Havstad's given name was, no one in the office ever knew. It seemed
improbable that she had a given name, a lover, a powder-puff, or a
digestion. She was so impersonal, this slight, pale, industrious Swede,
that it was vulgar to think of her as going to an ordinary home to eat
hash. She was a perfectly oiled and enameled machine, and she ought,
each evening, to have been dusted off and shut in her desk beside her
too-slim, too-frail pencil points. She took dictation swiftly, her
typing was perfect, but Babbitt became jumpy when he tried to work with
her. She made him feel puffy, and at his best-beloved daily jokes she
looked gently inquiring. He longed for Miss McGoun's return, and thought
of writing to her.

Then he heard that Miss McGoun had, a week after leaving him, gone over
to his dangerous competitors, Sanders, Torrey and Wing.

He was not merely annoyed; he was frightened. "Why did she quit, then?"
he worried. "Did she have a hunch my business is going on the rocks? And
it was Sanders got the Street Traction deal. Rats--sinking ship!"

Gray fear loomed always by him now. He watched Fritz Weilinger, the
young salesman, and wondered if he too would leave. Daily he fancied
slights. He noted that he was not asked to speak at the annual Chamber
of Commerce dinner. When Orville Jones gave a large poker party and he
was not invited, he was certain that he had been snubbed. He was afraid
to go to lunch at the Athletic Club, and afraid not to go. He believed
that he was spied on; that when he left the table they whispered about
him. Everywhere he heard the rustling whispers: in the offices of
clients, in the bank when he made a deposit, in his own office, in his
own home. Intermina