II
Thursday, the to-morrow of Tanis's note, was full of emotional crises. At the Roughnecks' Table at the club, Verg Gunch talked of the Good Citizens' League and (it seemed to Babbitt) deliberately left him out of the invitations to join. Old Mat Penniman, the general utility man at Babbitt's office, had Troubles, and came in to groan about them: his oldest boy was "no good," his wife was sick, and he had quarreled with his brother-in-law. Conrad Lyte also had Troubles, and since Lyte was one of his best clients, Babbitt had to listen to them. Mr. Lyte, it appeared, was suffering from a peculiarly interesting neuralgia, and the garage had overcharged him. When Babbitt came home, everybody had Troubles: his wife was simultaneously thinking about discharging the impudent new maid, and worried lest the maid leave; and Tinka desired to denounce her teacher.
"Oh, quit fussing!" Babbitt fussed. "You never hear me whining about my Troubles, and yet if you had to run a real-estate office— Why, to-day I found Miss Bannigan was two days behind with her accounts, and I pinched my finger in my desk, and Lyte was in and just as unreasonable as ever."
He was so vexed that after dinner, when it was time for a tactful escape to Tanis, he merely grumped to his wife, "Got to go out. Be back by eleven, should think."
"Oh! You're going out again?"
"Again! What do you mean 'again'! Haven't hardly been out of the house for a week!"
"Are you—are you going to the Elks?"
"Nope. Got to see some people."
Though this time he heard his own voice and knew that it was curt, though she was looking at him with wide-eyed reproach, he stumped into the hall, jerked on his ulster and furlined gloves, and went out to start the car.
He was relieved to find Tanis cheerful, unreproachful, and
