Free Babbit by Sinclair Lewis

Entertainment. He was a large man with hair en
brosse, and he knew the latest jokes, but he played poker close to
the chest. It was at his party that Babbitt had sucked in the virus
of to-day's restlessness.
      Gunch shouted, "How's the old Bolsheviki? How do you
feel, the morning after the night before?"
      "Oh, boy! Some head! That was a regular party you
threw, Verg! Hope you haven't forgotten I took that last cute
little jack-pot!" Babbitt bellowed. (He was three feet from
Gunch.)
      "That's all right now! What I'll hand you next time,
Georgie! Say, juh notice in the paper the way the New York Assembly
stood up to the Reds?"
      "You bet I did. That was fine, eh? Nice day
to-day."
      "Yes, it's one mighty fine spring day, but nights
still cold."
      "Yeh, you're right they are! Had to have coupla
blankets last night, out on the sleeping-porch. Say, Sid," Babbitt
turned to Finkelstein, the buyer, "got something wanta ask you
about. I went out and bought me an electric cigar-lighter for the
car, this noon, and - "
      "Good hunch!" said Finkelstein, while even the
learned Professor Pumphrey, a bulbous man with a pepper-and-salt
cutaway and a pipe-organ voice, commented, "That makes a dandy
accessory. Cigar-lighter gives tone to the dashboard."
      "Yep, finally decided I'd buy me one. Got the best
on the market, the clerk said it was. Paid five bucks for it. Just
wondering if I got stuck. What do they charge for 'em at the store,
Sid?"
      Finkelstein asserted that five dollars was not too
great a sum, not for a really high-class lighter which was suitably
nickeled and provided with connections of the very best quality. "I
always say - and believe me, I base it on a pretty fairly extensive
mercantile experience - the best is the cheapest in the long run.
Of course if a fellow wants to be a Jew about it, he can get cheap
junk, but in the long RUN, the cheapest thing is - the best you can
get! Now you take here just th' other day: I got a new top for my
old boat and some upholstery, and I paid out a hundred and
twenty-six fifty, and of course a lot of fellows would say that was
too much - Lord, if the Old Folks - they live in one of these hick
towns up-state and they simply can't get onto the way a city
fellow's mind works, and then, of course, they're Jews, and they'd
lie right down and die if they knew Sid had anted up a hundred and
twenty-six bones. But I don't figure I was stuck, George, not a
bit. Machine looks brand new now - not that it's so darned old, of
course; had it less 'n three years, but I give it hard service;
never drive less 'n a hundred miles on Sunday and, uh - Oh, I don't
really think you got stuck, George. In the LONG run, the best is,
you might say, it's unquestionably the cheapest."
      "That's right," said Vergil Gunch. "That's the way I
look at it. If a fellow is keyed up to what you might call
intensive living, the way you get it here in Zenith - all the
hustle and mental activity that's going on with a bunch of
live-wires like the Boosters and here in the Z.A.C., why, he's got
to save his nerves by having the best."
      Babbitt nodded his head at every fifth word in the
roaring rhythm; and by the conclusion, in Gunch's renowned humorous
vein, he was enchanted:
      "Still, at that, George, don't know's you can afford
it. I've heard your business has been kind of under the eye of the
gov'ment since you stole the tail of Eathorne Park and sold
it!"
      "Oh, you're a great little josher, Verg. But when it
comes to kidding, how about this report that you stole the black
marble steps off the post-office and sold 'em for high-grade coal!"
In delight Babbitt patted Gunch's back, stroked his arm.
      "That's all right, but what I want to know is: who's
the real-estate shark that bought that coal for his
apartment-houses?"
      "I guess that'll hold you for a while, George!" said
Finkelstein. "I'll tell you, though, boys, what I did hear:
George's missus went into the gents' wear department