a slighting remark on MY sister and I'd show him — ”
“Look here, young Dempsey! If I ever catch you fighting I'll whale the everlasting daylights out of you — and I'll do it without practising holding out my hand for a coin before the mirror, too!”
“Why, Ted dear,” Mrs. Babbitt said placidly, “it's not at all nice, your talking of fighting this way!”
“Well, gosh almighty, that's a fine way to appreciate — And then suppose I was walking with YOU, Ma, and somebody passed a slighting remark — ”
“Nobody's going to pass no slighting remarks on nobody,” Babbitt observed, “not if they stay home and study their geometry and mind their own affairs instead of hanging around a lot of poolrooms and soda-fountains and places where nobody's got any business to be!”
“But gooooooosh, Dad, if they DID!”
Mrs. Babbitt chirped, “Well, if they did, I wouldn't do them the honor of paying any attention to them! Besides, they never do. You always hear about these women that get followed and insulted and all, but I don't believe a word of it, or it's their own fault, the way some women look at a person. I certainly never 've been insulted by — ”
“Aw shoot. Mother, just suppose you WERE sometime! Just SUPPOSE! Can't you suppose something? Can't you imagine things?”
“Certainly I can imagine things! The idea!”
“Certainly your mother can imagine things — and suppose things! Think you're the only member of this household that's got an imagination?” Babbitt demanded. “But what's the use of a lot of supposing? Supposing never gets you anywhere. No sense supposing when there's a lot of real facts to take into considera — ”
“Look here, Dad. Suppose — I mean, just — just suppose you were in your office and some rival real-estate man — ”
“Realtor!”
“ — some realtor that you hated came in — ”
“I don't hate any realtor.”
“But suppose you DID!”
“I don't intend to suppose anything of the kind! There's plenty of fellows in my profession that stoop and hate their competitors, but if you were a little older and understood business, instead of always going to the movies and running around with a lot of fool girls with their dresses up to their knees and powdered and painted and rouged and God knows what all as if they were chorus-girls, then you'd know — and you'd suppose — that if there's any one thing that I stand for in the real-estate circles of Zenith, it is that we ought to always speak of each other only in the friendliest terms and institute a spirit of brotherhood and cooperation, and so I certainly can't suppose and I can't imagine my hating any realtor, not even that dirty, fourflushing society sneak, Cecil Rountree!”
“But — ”
“And there's no If, And or But about it! But if I WERE going to lambaste somebody, I wouldn't require any fancy ducks or swimming-strokes before a mirror, or any of these doodads and flipflops! Suppose you were out some place and a fellow called you vile names. Think you'd want to box and jump around like a dancing-master? You'd just lay him out cold (at least I certainly hope any son of mine would!) and then you'd dust off your hands and go on about your business, and that's all there is to it, and you aren't going to have any boxing-lessons by mail, either!”
“Well but — Yes — I just wanted to show how many different kinds of correspondence-courses there are, instead of all the camembert they teach us in the High.”
“But I thought they taught boxing in the school gymnasium.”
“That's different. They stick you up there and some big stiff amuses himself pounding the stuffin's out of you before you have a chance to learn. Hunka! Not any! But anyway — Listen to some of these others.”
The advertisements were truly philanthropic. One of them bore the rousing headline: “Money! Money!! Money!!!” The second announced that “Mr. P. R., formerly making only eighteen a week in a barber shop, writes to us that since taking our course he is now pulling down $5,000 as an Osteo-vitalic Physician;” and the third that “Miss J. L., recently a wrapper in a store, is now getting Ten Real Dollars a day teaching our Hindu System of Vibratory Breathing and Mental Control.”
Ted had collected fifty or sixty announcements, from annual reference-books, from Sunday School periodicals, fiction-magazines, and journals of discussion. One benefactor implored, “Don't be a Wallflower — Be More Popular and Make More Money — YOU Can Ukulele or Sing Yourself into Society! By the secret principles of a Newly Discovered System of Music Teaching, any one — man, lady or child — can, without tiresome exercises, special training or long drawn out study, and without waste of time, money or energy, learn to play by note, piano, banjo, cornet, clarinet, saxophone, violin or drum, and learn sight-singing.”
The next, under the wistful appeal “Finger Print Detectives Wanted — Big Incomes!” confided: “YOU red-blooded men and women — this is the PROFESSION you have been looking for. There's MONEY in it, BIG money, and that rapid change of scene, that entrancing and compelling interest and fascination, which your active mind and adventurous spirit crave. Think of being the chief figure and directing factor in solving strange mysteries and baffling crimes. This wonderful profession brings you into contact with influential men on the basis of equality, and often calls upon you to travel everywhere, maybe to distant lands — all expenses paid. NO SPECIAL EDUCATION REQUIRED.”
“Oh, boy! I guess that wins the fire-brick necklace! Wouldn't it be swell to travel everywhere and nab some famous crook!” whooped Ted.
“Well, I don't think much of that. Doggone likely to get hurt. Still, that music-study stunt might be pretty fair, though. There's no reason why, if efficiency-experts put their minds to it the way they have to routing products in a factory, they couldn't figure out some scheme so a person wouldn't have to monkey with all this practising and exercises that you get in music.” Babbitt was impressed, and he had a delightful parental feeling that they two, the men of the family, understood each other.
He listened to the notices of mail-box universities which taught Short-story Writing and Improving the Memory, Motion-picture-acting and Developing the Soul-power, Banking and Spanish, Chiropody and Photography, Electrical Engineering and Window-trimming, Poultry-raising and Chemistry.
“Well — well — ” Babbitt sought for adequate expression of his admiration. “I'm a son of a gun! I knew this correspondence-school business had become a mighty profitable game — makes suburban real-estate look like two cents! — but I didn't realize it'd got to be such a reg'lar key-industry! Must rank right up with groceries and movies. Always figured somebody'd come along with the brains to not leave education to a lot of bookworms and impractical theorists but make a big thing out of it. Yes, I can see how a lot of these courses might interest you. I must ask the fellows at the Athletic if they ever realized — But same time, Ted, you know how advertisers, I means some advertisers, exaggerate. I don't know as they'd be able to jam you through these courses as fast as they claim they can.”
“Oh sure, Dad; of course.” Ted had the immense and joyful maturity of a boy who is respectfully listened to by his elders. Babbitt concentrated on him with grateful affection:
“I can see what an influence these courses might have on the whole educational works. Course I'd never admit it publicly — fellow like myself, a State U. graduate, it's only decent and patriotic for him to blow his
