a Waring septic tank.

The whole of the Glen Oriole project was a suggestion that Babbitt,
though he really did hate men recognized as swindlers, was not too
unreasonably honest. Operators and buyers prefer that brokers should
not be in competition with them as operators and buyers themselves,
but attend to their clients' interests only. It was supposed that the
Babbitt-Thompson Company were merely agents for Glen Oriole, serving
the real owner, Jake Offutt, but the fact was that Babbitt and Thompson
owned sixty-two per cent. of the Glen, the president and purchasing
agent of the Zenith Street Traction Company owned twenty-eight per
cent., and Jake Offutt (a gang-politician, a small manufacturer,
a tobacco-chewing old farceur who enjoyed dirty politics, business
diplomacy, and cheating at poker) had only ten per cent., which
Babbitt and the Traction officials had given to him for "fixing" health
inspectors and fire inspectors and a member of the State Transportation
Commission.

But Babbitt was virtuous. He advocated, though he did not practise, the
prohibition of alcohol; he praised, though he did not obey, the laws
against motor-speeding; he paid his debts; he contributed to the church,
the Red Cross, and the Y. M. C. A.; he followed the custom of his
clan and cheated only as it was sanctified by precedent; and he never
descended to trickery--though, as he explained to Paul Riesling:

"Course I don't mean to say that every ad I write is literally true or
that I always believe everything I say when I give some buyer a good
strong selling-spiel. You see--you see it's like this: In the first
place, maybe the owner of the property exaggerated when he put it into
my hands, and it certainly isn't my place to go proving my principal
a liar! And then most folks are so darn crooked themselves that they
expect a fellow to do a little lying, so if I was fool enough to never
whoop the ante I'd get the credit for lying anyway! In self-defense I
got to toot my own horn, like a lawyer defending a client--his bounden
duty, ain't it, to bring out the poor dub's good points? Why, the Judge
himself would bawl out a lawyer that didn't, even if they both knew
the guy was guilty! But even so, I don't pad out the truth like Cecil
Rountree or Thayer or the rest of these realtors. Fact, I think a fellow
that's willing to deliberately up and profit by lying ought to be shot!"

Babbitt's value to his clients was rarely better shown than thi