ouple o' girls in my class I'd drive 'em down to
the rehearsal of the school chorus, and, gee, I don't want to, but a
gentleman's got to keep his social engagements."

"Well, upon my word! You and your social engagements! In high school!"

"Oh, ain't we select since we went to that hen college! Let me tell you
there isn't a private school in the state that's got as swell a bunch as
we got in Gamma Digamma this year. There's two fellows that their dads
are millionaires. Say, gee, I ought to have a car of my own, like lots
of the fellows." Babbitt almost rose. "A car of your own! Don't you want
a yacht, and a house and lot? That pretty nearly takes the cake! A boy
that can't pass his Latin examinations, like any other boy ought to, and
he expects me to give him a motor-car, and I suppose a chauffeur, and an
areoplane maybe, as a reward for the hard work he puts in going to the
movies with Eunice Littlefield! Well, when you see me giving you--"

Somewhat later, after diplomacies, Ted persuaded Verona to admit that
she was merely going to the Armory, that evening, to see the dog and
cat show. She was then, Ted planned, to park the car in front of the
candy-store across from the Armory and he would pick it up. There were
masterly arrangements regarding leaving the key, and having the gasoline
tank filled; and passionately, devotees of the Great God Motor, they
hymned the patch on the spare inner-tube, and the lost jack-handle.

Their truce dissolving, Ted observed that her friends were "a scream of
a bunch-stuck-up gabby four-flushers." His friends, she indicated,
were "disgusting imitation sports, and horrid little shrieking ignorant
girls." Further: "It's disgusting of you to smoke cigarettes, and so on
and so forth, and those clothes you've got on this morning, they're too
utterly ridiculous--honestly, simply disgusting."

Ted balanced over to the low beveled mirror in the buffet, regarded his
charms, and smirked. His suit, the latest thing in Old Eli Togs, was
skin-tight, with skimpy trousers to the tops of his glaring tan boots, a
chorus-man waistline, pattern of an agitated check, and across the back
a belt which belted nothing. His scarf was an enormous black silk wad.
His flaxen hair was ice-smooth, pasted back without parting. When he
went to school he would add a cap with a long vizor like a shovel-blade.
Proudest of all was his waistcoat, saved for, begged for, plotted for;
a real Fancy Vest of fawn with polk