At home, Babbitt never read with absorption.
He was concentrated enough at the office but here
he crossed his legs and fidgeted. When his story
was interesting he read the best, that is the funniest,
paragraphs to his wife; when it did not hold him he
coughed, scratched his ankles and his right ear, thrust
his left thumb into his vest pocket, jingled his silver,
whirled the cigar-cutter and the keys on one end of
his watch chain, yawned, rubbed his nose, and found
errands to do. He went upstairs to put on his
slippers—his elegant slippers of seal-brown,
shaped like medieval shoes. He brought up an apple
from the barrel which stood by the trunk-closet in
the basement.
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,”
he enlightened Mrs. Babbitt, for quite the first time
in fourteen hours.
“That’s so.”
“An apple is Nature’s best regulator.”
“Yes, it—”
“Trouble with women is, they never have sense
enough to form regular habits.”
“Well, I—”
“Always nibbling and eating between meals.”
“George!” She looked up from her reading.
“Did you have a light lunch to-day, like you
were going to? I did!”
This malicious and unprovoked attack astounded him.
“Well, maybe it wasn’t as light as—Went
to lunch with Paul and didn’t have much chance
to diet. Oh, you needn’t to grin like a
chessy cat! If it wasn’t for me watching
out and keeping an eye on our diet—I’m
the only member of this family that appreciates the
value of oatmeal for breakfast. I—”
She stooped over her story while he piously sliced
and gulped down the apple, discoursing:
“One thing I’ve done: cut down my
smoking.
“Had kind of a run-in with Graff in the office.
He’s getting too darn fresh. I’ll
stand for a good deal, but once in a while I got to
assert my authority, and I jumped him. ‘Stan,’
I said—Well, I told him just exactly where
he got off.
“Funny kind of a day. Makes you feel restless.
“Wellllllllll, uh—” That sleepiest
sound in the world, the terminal yawn. Mrs. Babbitt
yawned with it, and looked grateful as he droned,
“How about going to bed, eh? Don’t
suppose Rone and Ted will be in till all hours.
Yep, funny kind of a day; not terribly warm but yet—Gosh,
I’d like—Some day I’m going
to take a long motor trip.”
“Yes, we’d enjoy that,” she yawned.
He looked away from her as he realized that he did
not wish to have her go with him. As he locked
doors and tried windows and set the heat regulator
so that the furnace-drafts would open automatically
in the morning, he sighed a little, heavy with a lonely
feeling which perplexed and frightened him. So
absent-minded was he that he could not remember which
window-catches he had inspected, and through the darkness,
fumbling at unseen perilous chairs, he crept back to
try them all over again. His feet were loud on
the steps as he clumped upstairs at the end of this
great and treacherous day of veiled rebellions.
