The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Job, by Sinclair Lewis

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Title: The Job
An American Novel

Author: Sinclair Lewis

Release Date: May 15, 2008 [EBook #25474]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE JOB

AN AMERICAN NOVEL

BY
SINCLAIR LEWIS

AUTHOR OF MAIN STREET, BABBITT, ETC.

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published February, 1917

TO

MY WIFE

WHO HAS MADE "THE JOB" POSSIBLE AND LIFE ITSELF
QUITE BEAUTIFULLY IMPROBABLE

CONTENTS

Page

Part I 3
THE CITY

Part II 133
THE OFFICE

Part III 251
MAN AND WOMAN

Part I

THE CITY

CHAPTER I

Captain Lew Golden would have saved any foreign observer a great deal of
trouble in studying America. He was an almost perfect type of the petty
small-town middle-class lawyer. He lived in Panama, Pennsylvania. He had
never been "captain" of anything except the Crescent Volunteer Fire
Company, but he owned the title because he collected rents, wrote
insurance, and meddled with lawsuits.

He carried a quite visible mustache-comb and wore a collar, but no tie.
On warm days he appeared on the street in his shirt-sleeves, and
discussed the comparative temperatures of the past thirty years with
Doctor Smith and the Mansion House 'bus-driver. He never used the word
"beauty" except in reference to a setter dog--beauty of words or music,
of faith or rebellion, did not exist for him. He rather fancied large,
ambitious, banal, red-and-gold sunsets, but he merely glanced at them as
he straggled home, and remarked that they were "nice." He believed that
all Parisians, artists, millionaires, and socialists we