to his support, scandalous as it would be. But it is hard
to do, because Gibb is no pauper. He is a gentleman of leisure with the
dignity of an Indian. His worn suits are neat, and he is as dapper with
a battered hat and a four-year-old celluloid collar as if he spent real
money on his wardrobe. He chooses his life and lives it without
complaint. Periodically we strive heroically to make him work. The boys
at the planter factory, who are a rough lot but have some hold on Gibb
because they entertain him out of their lunch boxes, kidnap him about
twice a year and drag him in to the superintendent to get a job for
him. Gibb protests frantically that he has business which can't be
neglected--that he is just closing a deal for a good position at the
hotel--that he is going away on a trip--but nothing helps him. He
accepts the job with ill-concealed horror, and the factory boys climb up
on the roof of the main building and hoist a flag. We all know what it
means. Gibb is working again. And we all know what will happen next.

About two days later Gibb will be limping to the factory very late with
his off-foot done up in an enormous comforter. "That's what you have
done, boys," he will say with simple dignity, "you've hurt that old sore
foot of mine. It's never been right since I hurt it with the fire
company. It's in awful shape now. I guess I'll lose it at last. You
oughtn't to have done it, boys. Goodness knows, I'd have worked all
these years if I'd had any foot to speak of."

Then he goes in and resigns--after which the foot recovers in great
haste, and Gibb stands on it relentlessly twelve hours a day in the old
way, while he watches the world go round and waits for the judgment day.

You'd think from the way we hammer at both DeLancey and Gibb to go to
work that they would hang together, being in the same class. But they
don't. In fact they have the greatest contempt for each other. DeLancey
will not speak to Gibb, and thinks it is a crime that he isn't sent to
the stone pile; while Gibb speaks of DeLancey in pitying accents as a
young man who ought to know better than to waste his time herding a
little white pill into a hole in a cow pasture. Gibb is very severe on
the frivolities of the prosperous. He can't bear to see them frittering
away their time.

That's our leisure class in Homeburg, and it isn't growing. If it was
we'd be worried, and the Commercial Club would hold meetings about it.
And I'm just telling you