failed to keep up. To be the "livest" of them was as much his ambition
now as it had been to excel at making money, at playing golf, at
motor-driving, at oratory, at climbing to the McKelvey set. But
occasionally he failed.

He found that Pete and the other young men considered the Bunch too
austerely polite and the Carrie who merely kissed behind doors too
embarrassingly monogamic. As Babbitt sneaked from Floral Heights down
to the Bunch, so the young gallants sneaked from the proprieties of the
Bunch off to "times" with bouncing young women whom they picked up
in department stores and at hotel coatrooms. Once Babbitt tried to
accompany them. There was a motor car, a bottle of whisky, and for him
a grubby shrieking cash-girl from Parcher and Stein's. He sat beside her
and worried. He was apparently expected to "jolly her along," but when
she sang out, "Hey, leggo, quit crushing me cootie-garage," he did not
quite know how to go on. They sat in the back room of a saloon, and
Babbitt had a headache, was confused by their new slang looked at them
benevolently, wanted to go home, and had a drink--a good many drinks.

Two evenings after, Fulton Bemis, the surly older man of the Bunch, took
Babbitt aside and grunted, "Look here, it's none of my business, and God
knows I always lap up my share of the hootch, but don't you think you
better watch yourself? You're one of these enthusiastic chumps that
always overdo things. D' you realize you're throwing in the booze as
fast as you can, and you eat one cigarette right after another? Better
cut it out for a while."

Babbitt tearfully said that good old Fult was a prince, and yes, he
certainly would cut it out, and thereafter he lighted a cigarette and
took a drink and had a terrific quarrel with Tanis when she caught him
being affectionate with Carrie Nork.

Next morning he hated himself that he should have sunk into a position
where a fifteenth-rater like Fulton Bemis could rebuke him. He perceived
that, since he was making love to every woman possible, Tanis was no
longer his one pure star, and he wondered whether she had ever been
anything more to him than A Woman. And if Bemis had spoken to him, were
other people talking about him? He suspiciously watched the men at the
Athletic Club that noon. It seemed to him that they were uneasy. They
had been talking about him then? He was angry. He became belligerent.
He not only defended Seneca Doane but even made fun of the Y. M. C