cycles, poured by; on the
farther corner, pneumatic riveters rang on the sun-plated skeleton of
a new building; and out of this tornado flashed the inspiration of
a familiar face, and a fellow Booster shouted, "H' are you, George!"
Babbitt waved in neighborly affection, and slid on with the traffic as
the policeman lifted his hand. He noted how quickly his car picked up.
He felt superior and powerful, like a shuttle of polished steel darting
in a vast machine.

As always he ignored the next two blocks, decayed blocks not yet
reclaimed from the grime and shabbiness of the Zenith of 1885. While
he was passing the five-and-ten-cent store, the Dakota Lodging House,
Concordia Hall with its lodge-rooms and the offices of fortune-tellers
and chiropractors, he thought of how much money he made, and he boasted
a little and worried a little and did old familiar sums:

"Four hundred fifty plunks this morning from the Lyte deal. But taxes
due. Let's see: I ought to pull out eight thousand net this year, and
save fifteen hundred of that--no, not if I put up garage and--Let's
see: six hundred and forty clear last month, and twelve times six-forty
makes--makes--let see: six times twelve is seventy-two hundred and--Oh
rats, anyway, I'll make eight thousand--gee now, that's not so bad;
mighty few fellows pulling down eight thousand dollars a year--eight
thousand good hard iron dollars--bet there isn't more than five per
cent. of the people in the whole United States that make more than
Uncle George does, by golly! Right up at the top of the heap! But--Way
expenses are--Family wasting gasoline, and always dressed like
millionaires, and sending that eighty a month to Mother--And all these
stenographers and salesmen gouging me for every cent they can get--"

The effect of his scientific budget-planning was that he felt at once
triumphantly wealthy and perilously poor, and in the midst of
these dissertations he stopped his car, rushed into a small
news-and-miscellany shop, and bought the electric cigar-lighter which
he had coveted for a week. He dodged his conscience by being jerky and
noisy, and by shouting at the clerk, "Guess this will prett' near pay
for itself in matches, eh?"

It was a pretty thing, a nickeled cylinder with an almost silvery
socket, to be attached to the dashboard of his car. It was not only, as
the placard on the counter observed, "a dandy little refinement,
lending the last touch of class to a gentleman's auto,"