Main Street & Babbitt. Sinclair Lewis
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heels, put their hands in their trousers-pockets, and proclaimed their views with the booming profundity of a prosperous male repeating a thoroughly hackneyed statement about a matter of which he knows nothing whatever.
“Now, I'll tell you,” said Vergil Gunch; “way I figure it is this, and I can speak by the book, because I've talked to a lot of doctors and fellows that ought to know, and the way I see it is that it's a good thing to get rid of the saloon, but they ought to let a fellow have beer and light wines.”
Howard Littlefield observed, “What isn't generally realized is that it's a dangerous prop'sition to invade the rights of personal liberty. Now, take this for instance: The King of — Bavaria? I think it was Bavaria — yes, Bavaria, it was — in 1862, March, 1862, he issued a proclamation against public grazing of live-stock. The peasantry had stood for overtaxation without the slightest complaint, but when this proclamation came out, they rebelled. Or it may have been Saxony. But it just goes to show the dangers of invading the rights of personal liberty.”
“That's it — no one got a right to invade personal liberty,” said Orville Jones.
“Just the same, you don't want to forget prohibition is a mighty good thing for the working-classes. Keeps 'em from wasting their money and lowering their productiveness,” said Vergil Gunch.
“Yes, that's so. But the trouble is the manner of enforcement,” insisted Howard Littlefield. “Congress didn't understand the right system. Now, if I'd been running the thing, I'd have arranged it so that the drinker himself was licensed, and then we could have taken care of the shiftless workman — kept him from drinking — and yet not 've interfered with the rights — with the personal liberty — of fellows like ourselves.”
They bobbed their heads, looked admiringly at one another, and stated, “That's so, that would be the stunt.”
“The thing that worries me is that a lot of these guys will take to cocaine,” sighed Eddie Swanson.
They bobbed more violently, and groaned, “That's so, there is a danger of that.”
Chum Frink chanted, “Oh, say, I got hold of a swell new receipt for home-made beer the other day. You take — ”
Gunch interrupted, “Wait! Let me tell you mine!” Littlefield snorted, “Beer! Rats! Thing to do is to ferment cider!” Jones insisted, “I've got the receipt that does the business!” Swanson begged, “Oh, say, lemme tell you the story — ” But Frink went on resolutely, “You take and save the shells from peas, and pour six gallons of water on a bushel of shells and boil the mixture till — ”
Mrs. Babbitt turned toward them with yearning sweetness; Frink hastened to finish even his best beer-recipe; and she said gaily, “Dinner is served.”
There was a good deal of friendly argument among the men as to which should go in last, and while they were crossing the hall from the living-room to the dining-room Vergil Gunch made them laugh by thundering, “If I can't sit next to Myra Babbitt and hold her hand under the table, I won't play — I'm goin' home.” In the dining-room they stood embarrassed while Mrs. Babbitt fluttered, “Now, let me see — Oh, I was going to have some nice hand-painted place-cards for you but — Oh, let me see; Mr. Frink, you sit there.”
The dinner was in the best style of women's-magazine art, whereby the salad was served in hollowed apples, and everything but the invincible fried chicken resembled something else. Ordinarily the men found it hard to talk to the women; flirtation was an art unknown on Floral Heights, and the realms of offices and of kitchens had no alliances. But under the inspiration of the cocktails, conversation was violent. Each of the men still had a number of important things to say about prohibition, and now that each had a loyal listener in his dinner-partner he burst out:
“I found a place where I can get all the hootch I want at eight a quart — ”
“Did you read about this fellow that went and paid a thousand dollars for ten cases of red-eye that proved to be nothing but water? Seems this fellow was standing on the corner and fellow comes up to him — ”
“They say there's a whole raft of stuff being smuggled across at Detroit — ”
“What I always say is — what a lot of folks don't realize about prohibition — ”
“And then you get all this awful poison stuff — wood alcohol and everything — ”
“Course I believe in it on principle, but I don't propose to have anybody telling me what I got to think and do. No American 'll ever stand for that!”
But they all felt that it was rather in bad taste for Orville Jones — and he not recognized as one of the wits of the occasion anyway — to say, “In fact, the whole thing about prohibition is this: it isn't the initial cost, it's the humidity.”
Not till the one required topic had been dealt with did the conversation become general.
It was often and admiringly said of Vergil Gunch, “Gee, that fellow can get away with murder! Why, he can pull a Raw One in mixed company and all the ladies 'll laugh their heads off, but me, gosh, if I crack anything that's just the least bit off color I get the razz for fair!” Now Gunch delighted them by crying to Mrs. Eddie Swanson, youngest of the women, “Louetta! I managed to pinch Eddie's doorkey out of his pocket, and what say you and me sneak across the street when the folks aren't looking? Got something,” with a gorgeous leer, “awful important to tell you!”
The women wriggled, and Babbitt was stirred to like naughtiness. “Say, folks, I wished I dared show you a book I borrowed from Doc Patten!”
“Now, George! The idea!” Mrs. Babbitt warned him.
“This book — racy isn't the word! It's some kind of an anthropological report about — about Customs, in the South Seas, and what it doesn't SAY! It's a book you can't buy. Verg, I'll lend it to you.”
“Me first!” insisted Eddie Swanson. “Sounds spicy!”
Orville Jones announced, “Say, I heard a Good One the other day about a coupla Swedes and their wives,” and, in the best Jewish accent, he resolutely carried the Good One to a slightly disinfected ending. Gunch capped it. But the cocktails waned, the seekers dropped back into cautious reality.
Chum Frink had recently been on a lecture-tour among the small towns, and he chuckled, “Awful good to get back to civilization! I certainly been seeing some hick towns! I mean — Course the folks there are the best on earth, but, gee whiz, those Main Street burgs are slow, and you fellows can't hardly appreciate what it means to be here with a bunch of live ones!”
“You bet!” exulted Orville Jones. “They're the best folks on earth, those small-town folks, but, oh, mama! what conversation! Why, say, they can't talk about anything but the weather and the ne-oo Ford, by heckalorum!”
“That's right. They all talk about just the same things,” said Eddie Swanson.
“Don't they, though! They just say the same things over and over,” said Vergil Gunch.
“Yes, it's really remarkable. They seem to lack all power of looking at things impersonally. They simply go over and over the same talk about Fords and the weather and so on.” said Howard Littlefield.
“Still, at that, you can't blame 'em. They haven't got any intellectual stimulus such as you get up here in the city,” said Chum Frink.
“Gosh, that's right,” said Babbitt. “I don't want you highbrows to get stuck on yourselves but I must say it keeps a fellow right up on his toes to sit in with a poet and with Howard, the guy that put the con in economics! But these small-town boobs, with nobody but each other to talk to, no wonder they get so sloppy and uncultured in their speech, and so balled-up in their thinking!”
Orville Jones commented, “And, then take our other advantages — the movies, frinstance. These Yapville sports think they're all-get-out if they have one change of bill a week, where here in the city you got your choice of a dozen diff'rent movies any evening you want to name!”