One evening when Tanis was at the theater, Babbitt found himself being lively with the Doppelbraus, pledging friendship with men whom he had for years privily denounced to Mrs. Babbitt as a “rotten bunch of tin-horns that I wouldn’t go out with, not if they were the last people on earth.” That evening he had sulkily come home and poked about in front of the house, chipping off the walk the ice-clots, like fossil footprints, made by the steps of passers-by during the recent snow. Howard Littlefield came up snuffling.
“Still a widower, George?”
“Yump. Cold again to-night.”
“What do you hear from the wife?”
“She’s feeling fine, but her sister is still pretty sick.”
“Say, better come in and have dinner with us to-night, George.”
“Oh—oh, thanks. Have to go out.”
Suddenly he could not endure Littlefield’s recitals of the more interesting statistics about totally uninteresting problems. He scraped at the walk and grunted.
Sam Doppelbrau appeared.
“Evenin’, Babbitt. Working hard?”