ow do you like this:

The long white trail is calling--calling-and it's over the hills and far
away for every man or woman that has red blood in his veins and on his
lips the ancient song of the buccaneers. It's away with dull drudging,
and a fig for care. Speed--glorious Speed--it's more than just a
moment's exhilaration--it's Life for you and me! This great new truth
the makers of the Zeeco Car have considered as much as price and style.
It's fleet as the antelope, smooth as the glide of a swallow, yet
powerful as the charge of a bull-elephant. Class breathes in every line.
Listen, brother! You'll never know what the high art of hiking is till
you TRY LIFE'S ZIPPINGEST ZEST--THE ZEECO!"

"Yes," Frink mused, "that's got an elegant color to it, if I do say
so, but it ain't got the originality of 'spill-of-speech!'" The whole
company sighed with sympathy and admiration.

CHAPTER IX

I

BABBITT was fond of his friends, he loved the importance of being host
and shouting, "Certainly, you're going to have smore chicken--the idea!"
and he appreciated the genius of T. Cholmondeley Frink, but the vigor
of the cocktails was gone, and the more he ate the less joyful he
felt. Then the amity of the dinner was destroyed by the nagging of the
Swansons.

In Floral Heights and the other prosperous sections of Zenith,
especially in the "young married set," there were many women who had
nothing to do. Though they had few servants, yet with gas stoves,
electric ranges and dish-washers and vacuum cleaners, and tiled kitchen
walls, their houses were so convenient that they had little housework,
and much of their food came from bakeries and delicatessens. They had
but two, one, or no children; and despite the myth that the Great War
had made work respectable, their husbands objected to their "wasting
time and getting a lot of crank ideas" in unpaid social work, and still
more to their causing a rumor, by earning money, that they were not
adequately supported. They worked perhaps two hours a day, and the
rest of the time they ate chocolates, went to the motion-pictures, went
window-shopping, went in gossiping twos and threes to card-parties,
read magazines, thought timorously of the lovers who never appeared,
and accumulated a splendid restlessness which they got rid of by nagging
their husbands. The husbands nagged back.

Of these naggers the Swansons were perfect specimens.

Throughout the dinner Eddie Swanson had been com