Babbitt attended to her: “Nonsense!
Get just as much, studying at home. You don’t
think a fellow learns any more because he blows in
his father’s hard-earned money and sits around
in Morris chairs in a swell Harvard dormitory with
pictures and shields and table-covers and those doodads,
do you? I tell you, I’m a college man—I
know! There is one objection you might make
though. I certainly do protest against any effort
to get a lot of fellows out of barber shops and factories
into the professions. They’re too crowded
already, and what’ll we do for workmen if all
those fellows go and get educated?”
Ted was leaning back, smoking a cigarette without
reproof. He was, for the moment, sharing the
high thin air of Babbitt’s speculation as though
he were Paul Riesling or even Dr. Howard Littlefield.
He hinted:
“Well, what do you think then, Dad? Wouldn’t
it be a good idea if I could go off to China or some
peppy place, and study engineering or something by
mail?”
“No, and I’ll tell you why, son.
I’ve found out it’s a mighty nice thing
to be able to say you’re a B.A. Some client
that doesn’t know what you are and thinks you’re
just a plug business man, he gets to shooting off
his mouth about economics or literature or foreign
trade conditions, and you just ease in something like,
’When I was in college—course I got
my B.A. in sociology and all that junk—’
Oh, it puts an awful crimp in their style! But
there wouldn’t be any class to saying ’I
got the degree of Stamp-licker from the Bezuzus Mail-order
University!’ You see—My dad was a
pretty good old coot, but he never had much style to
him, and I had to work darn hard to earn my way through
college. Well, it’s been worth it, to be
able to associate with the finest gentlemen in Zenith,
at the clubs and so on, and I wouldn’t want you
to drop out of the gentlemen class—the
class that are just as red-blooded as the Common People
but still have power and personality. It would
kind of hurt me if you did that, old man!”
“I know, Dad! Sure! All right.
I’ll stick to it. Say! Gosh! Gee
whiz! I forgot all about those kids I was going
to take to the chorus rehearsal. I’ll have
to duck!”
“But you haven’t done all your home-work.”
“Do it first thing in the morning.”
“Well—”
Six times in the past sixty days Babbitt had stormed,
“You will not ’do it first thing in the
morning’! You’ll do it right now!”
but to-night he said, “Well, better hustle,”
and his smile was the rare shy radiance he kept for
Paul Riesling.
“Ted’s a good boy,” he said to Mrs.
Babbitt.
“Oh, he is!”
“Who’s these girls he’s going to
pick up? Are they nice decent girls?”
“I don’t know. Oh dear, Ted never
tells me anything any more. I don’t understand
what’s come over the children of this generation.
I used to have to tell Papa and Mama everything, but
seems like the children to-day have just slipped away
from all control.”
