I

HE forgot Paul Riesling in an afternoon of not unagreeable details. After a return to his office, which seemed to have staggered on without him, he drove a “prospect” out to view a four-flat tenement¹ in the Linton district. He was inspired by the customer's admiration² of the new cigar-lighter. Thrice its novelty made him use it, and thrice he hurled³ half-smoked cigarettes from the car, protesting, “I GOT to quit smoking so blame much!”

 

Their ample discussion of every detail of the cigar-lighter led them to speak of electric flat-irons and bed-warmers. Babbitt apologized for being so shabbily old-fashioned as still to use a hot-water bottle, and he announced that he would have the sleeping-porch wired at once. He had enormous and poetic⁴ admiration, though very little understanding, of all mechanical devices. They were his symbols of truth and beauty. Regarding each new intricate mechanism—metal lathe⁶, two-jet carburetor, machine gun, oxyacetylene welder—he learned one good realistic-sounding phrase, and used it over and over, with a delightful⁷ feeling of being technical and initiated⁸.

 

The customer joined him in the worship of machinery¹⁰, and they came buoyantly up to the tenement and began that examination of plastic slate¹¹ roof, kalamein doors, and seven-eighths-inch blind-nailed flooring, began those diplomacies of hurt surprise and readiness to be persuaded to do something they had already decided¹² to do, which would some day result in a sale.

分享到：