infuriating and inescapable. Not till the
rising voice of the motor told him that the Ford was moving was he
released from the panting tension. He glanced once at his favorite tree,
elm twigs against the gold patina of sky, and fumbled for sleep as for a
drug. He who had been a boy very credulous of life was no longer greatly
interested in the possible and improbable adventures of each new day.

He escaped from reality till the alarm-clock rang, at seven-twenty.

III

It was the best of nationally advertised and quantitatively produced
alarm-clocks, with all modern attachments, including cathedral chime,
intermittent alarm, and a phosphorescent dial. Babbitt was proud
of being awakened by such a rich device. Socially it was almost as
creditable as buying expensive cord tires.

He sulkily admitted now that there was no more escape, but he lay and
detested the grind of the real-estate business, and disliked his family,
and disliked himself for disliking them. The evening before, he had
played poker at Vergil Gunch's till midnight, and after such holidays
he was irritable before breakfast. It may have been the tremendous
home-brewed beer of the prohibition-era and the cigars to which that
beer enticed him; it may have been resentment of return from this fine,
bold man-world to a restricted region of wives and stenographers, and of
suggestions not to smoke so much.

From the bedroom beside the sleeping-porch, his wife's detestably
cheerful "Time to get up, Georgie boy," and the itchy sound, the brisk
and scratchy sound, of combing hairs out of a stiff brush.

He grunted; he dragged his thick legs, in faded baby-blue pajamas, from
under the khaki blanket; he sat on the edge of the cot, running his
fingers through his wild hair, while his plump feet mechanically felt
for his slippers. He looked regretfully at the blanket--forever a
suggestion to him of freedom and heroism. He had bought it for a camping
trip which had never come off. It symbolized gorgeous loafing, gorgeous
cursing, virile flannel shirts.

He creaked to his feet, groaning at the waves of pain which passed
behind his eyeballs. Though he waited for their scorching recurrence, he
looked blurrily out at the yard. It delighted him, as always; it was
the neat yard of a successful business man of Zenith, that is, it was
perfection, and made him also perfect. He regarded the corrugated
iron garage. For the three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth time in a year he
ref