barbarous twentieth century, a family's motor indicated
its social rank as precisely as the grades of the peerage determined
the rank of an English family--indeed, more precisely, considering the
opinion of old county families upon newly created brewery barons and
woolen-mill viscounts. The details of precedence were never officially
determined. There was no court to decide whether the second son of a
Pierce Arrow limousine should go in to dinner before the first son of a
Buick roadster, but of their respective social importance there was no
doubt; and where Babbitt as a boy had aspired to the presidency, his
son Ted aspired to a Packard twin-six and an established position in the
motored gentry.

The favor which Babbitt had won from his family by speaking of a new car
evaporated as they realized that he didn't intend to buy one this year.
Ted lamented, "Oh, punk! The old boat looks as if it'd had fleas and
been scratching its varnish off." Mrs. Babbitt said abstractedly,
"Snoway talkcher father." Babbitt raged, "If you're too much of a
high-class gentleman, and you belong to the bon ton and so on, why, you
needn't take the car out this evening." Ted explained, "I didn't mean--"
and dinner dragged on with normal domestic delight to the inevitable
point at which Babbitt protested, "Come, come now, we can't sit here all
evening. Give the girl a chance to clear away the table."

He was fretting, "What a family! I don't know how we all get to
scrapping this way. Like to go off some place and be able to hear myself
think.... Paul ... Maine ... Wear old pants, and loaf, and cuss." He
said cautiously to his wife, "I've been in correspondence with a man in
New York--wants me to see him about a real-estate trade--may not come
off till summer. Hope it doesn't break just when we and the Rieslings
get ready to go to Maine. Be a shame if we couldn't make the trip there
together. Well, no use worrying now."

Verona escaped, immediately after dinner, with no discussion save an
automatic "Why don't you ever stay home?" from Babbitt.

In the living-room, in a corner of the davenport, Ted settled down to
his Home Study; plain geometry, Cicero, and the agonizing metaphors of
Comus.

"I don't see why they give us this old-fashioned junk by Milton and
Shakespeare and Wordsworth and all these has-beens," he protested. "Oh,
I guess I could stand it to see a show by Shakespeare, if they had swell
scenery and put on a lot of dog, but to s