neighborhoods to live there for a generation - was
Babbitt more splendidly innocent than in the science of sanitation.
He did not know a malaria-bearing mosquito from a bat; he knew
nothing about tests of drinking water; and in the matters of
plumbing and sewage he was as unlearned as he was voluble. He often
referred to the excellence of the bathrooms in the houses he sold.
He was fond of explaining why it was that no European ever bathed.
Some one had told him, when he was twenty-two, that all cesspools
were unhealthy, and he still denounced them. If a client
impertinently wanted him to sell a house which had a cesspool,
Babbitt always spoke about it - before accepting the house and
selling it.
When he laid out the Glen Oriole acreage
development, when he ironed woodland and dipping meadow into a
glenless, orioleless, sunburnt flat prickly with small boards
displaying the names of imaginary streets, he righteously put in a
complete sewage-system. It made him feel superior; it enabled him
to sneer privily at the Martin Lumsen development, Avonlea, which
had a cesspool; and it provided a chorus for the full-page
advertisements in which he announced the beauty, convenience,
cheapness, and supererogatory healthfulness of Glen Oriole. The
only flaw was that the Glen Oriole sewers had insufficient outlet,
so that waste remained in them, not very agreeably, while the
Avonlea cesspool was a Waring septic tank.
The whole of the Glen Oriole project was a
suggestion that Babbitt, though he really did hate men recognized
as swindlers, was not too unreasonably honest. Operators and buyers
prefer that brokers should not be in competition with them as
operators and buyers themselves, but attend to their clients'
interests only. It was supposed that the Babbitt-Thompson Company
were merely agents for Glen Oriole, serving the real owner, Jake
Offutt, but the fact was that Babbitt and Thompson owned sixty-two
per cent. of the Glen, the president and purchasing agent of the
Zenith Street Traction Company owned twenty-eight per cent., and
Jake Offutt (a gang-politician, a small manufacturer, a
tobacco-chewing old farceur who enjoyed dirty politics, business
diplomacy, and cheating at poker) had only ten per cent., which
Babbitt and the Traction officials had given to him for "fixing"
health inspectors and fire inspectors and a member of the State
Transportation Commission.
But Babbitt was virtuous. He advocated, though he
did not practise, the prohibition of alcohol; he praised, though he
did not obey, the laws against motor-speeding; he paid his debts;
he contributed to the church, the Red Cross, and the Y. M. C. A.;
he followed the custom of his clan and cheated only as it was
sanctified by precedent; and he never descended to trickery -
though, as he explained to Paul Riesling:
"Course I don't mean to say that every ad I write is
literally true or that I always believe everything I say when I
give some buyer a good strong selling-spiel. You see - you see it's
like this: In the first place, maybe the owner of the property
exaggerated when he put it into my hands, and it certainly isn't my
place to go proving my principal a liar! And then most folks are so
darn crooked themselves that they expect a fellow to do a little
lying, so if I was fool enough to never whoop the ante I'd get the
credit for lying anyway! In self-defense I got to toot my own horn,
like a lawyer defending a client - his bounden duty, ain't it, to
bring out the poor dub's good points? Why, the Judge himself would
bawl out a lawyer that didn't, even if they both knew the guy was
guilty! But even so, I don't pad out the truth like Cecil Rountree
or Thayer or the rest of these realtors. Fact, I think a fellow
that's willing to deliberately up and profit by lying ought to be
shot!"
Babbitt's value to his clients was rarely better
shown than this morning, in the conference at eleven-thirty between
himself, Conrad Lyte, and Archibald
Babbitt more splendidly innocent than in the science of sanitation.
He did not know a malaria-bearing mosquito from a bat; he knew
nothing about tests of drinking water; and in the matters of
plumbing and sewage he was as unlearned as he was voluble. He often
referred to the excellence of the bathrooms in the houses he sold.
He was fond of explaining why it was that no European ever bathed.
Some one had told him, when he was twenty-two, that all cesspools
were unhealthy, and he still denounced them. If a client
impertinently wanted him to sell a house which had a cesspool,
Babbitt always spoke about it - before accepting the house and
selling it.
When he laid out the Glen Oriole acreage
development, when he ironed woodland and dipping meadow into a
glenless, orioleless, sunburnt flat prickly with small boards
displaying the names of imaginary streets, he righteously put in a
complete sewage-system. It made him feel superior; it enabled him
to sneer privily at the Martin Lumsen development, Avonlea, which
had a cesspool; and it provided a chorus for the full-page
advertisements in which he announced the beauty, convenience,
cheapness, and supererogatory healthfulness of Glen Oriole. The
only flaw was that the Glen Oriole sewers had insufficient outlet,
so that waste remained in them, not very agreeably, while the
Avonlea cesspool was a Waring septic tank.
The whole of the Glen Oriole project was a
suggestion that Babbitt, though he really did hate men recognized
as swindlers, was not too unreasonably honest. Operators and buyers
prefer that brokers should not be in competition with them as
operators and buyers themselves, but attend to their clients'
interests only. It was supposed that the Babbitt-Thompson Company
were merely agents for Glen Oriole, serving the real owner, Jake
Offutt, but the fact was that Babbitt and Thompson owned sixty-two
per cent. of the Glen, the president and purchasing agent of the
Zenith Street Traction Company owned twenty-eight per cent., and
Jake Offutt (a gang-politician, a small manufacturer, a
tobacco-chewing old farceur who enjoyed dirty politics, business
diplomacy, and cheating at poker) had only ten per cent., which
Babbitt and the Traction officials had given to him for "fixing"
health inspectors and fire inspectors and a member of the State
Transportation Commission.
But Babbitt was virtuous. He advocated, though he
did not practise, the prohibition of alcohol; he praised, though he
did not obey, the laws against motor-speeding; he paid his debts;
he contributed to the church, the Red Cross, and the Y. M. C. A.;
he followed the custom of his clan and cheated only as it was
sanctified by precedent; and he never descended to trickery -
though, as he explained to Paul Riesling:
"Course I don't mean to say that every ad I write is
literally true or that I always believe everything I say when I
give some buyer a good strong selling-spiel. You see - you see it's
like this: In the first place, maybe the owner of the property
exaggerated when he put it into my hands, and it certainly isn't my
place to go proving my principal a liar! And then most folks are so
darn crooked themselves that they expect a fellow to do a little
lying, so if I was fool enough to never whoop the ante I'd get the
credit for lying anyway! In self-defense I got to toot my own horn,
like a lawyer defending a client - his bounden duty, ain't it, to
bring out the poor dub's good points? Why, the Judge himself would
bawl out a lawyer that didn't, even if they both knew the guy was
guilty! But even so, I don't pad out the truth like Cecil Rountree
or Thayer or the rest of these realtors. Fact, I think a fellow
that's willing to deliberately up and profit by lying ought to be
shot!"
Babbitt's value to his clients was rarely better
shown than this morning, in the conference at eleven-thirty between
himself, Conrad Lyte, and Archibald
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