ls all you want to, old thing, but believe me, if
it hadn't been for you and an occasional evening playing the violin to
Terrill O'Farrell's 'cello, and three or four darling girls that let me
forget this beastly joke they call 'respectable life,' I'd 've killed
myself years ago.

"And business! The roofing business! Roofs for cowsheds! Oh, I don't
mean I haven't had a lot of fun out of the Game; out of putting it over
on the labor unions, and seeing a big check coming in, and the business
increasing. But what's the use of it? You know, my business isn't
distributing roofing--it's principally keeping my competitors from
distributing roofing. Same with you. All we do is cut each other's
throats and make the public pay for it!"

"Look here now, Paul! You're pretty darn near talking socialism!"

"Oh yes, of course I don't really exactly mean that--I s'pose.
Course--competition--brings out the best--survival of the
fittest--but--But I mean: Take all these fellows we know, the kind
right here in the club now, that seem to be perfectly content with their
home-life and their businesses, and that boost Zenith and the Chamber
of Commerce and holler for a million population. I bet if you could
cut into their heads you'd find that one-third of 'em are sure-enough
satisfied with their wives and kids and friends and their offices; and
one-third feel kind of restless but won't admit it; and one-third are
miserable and know it. They hate the whole peppy, boosting, go-ahead
game, and they're bored by their wives and think their families are
fools--at least when they come to forty or forty-five they're bored--and
they hate business, and they'd go--Why do you suppose there's so many
'mysterious' suicides? Why do you suppose so many Substantial Citizens
jumped right into the war? Think it was all patriotism?"

Babbitt snorted, "What do you expect? Think we were sent into the world
to have a soft time and--what is it?--'float on flowery beds of ease'?
Think Man was just made to be happy?"

"Why not? Though I've never discovered anybody that knew what the deuce
Man really was made for!"

"Well we know--not just in the Bible alone, but it stands to reason--a
man who doesn't buckle down and do his duty, even if it does bore him
sometimes, is nothing but a--well, he's simply a weakling. Mollycoddle,
in fact! And what do you advocate? Come down to cases! If a man is bored
by his wife, do you seriously mean he has a right to chuck her and