But the house has an effect not at all humorous.  It embodies the heavy dignity of those Victorian financiers who ruled the generation between the pioneers and the brisk “sales-engineers” and created a somber oligarchy by gaining control of banks, mills, land, railroads, mines.  Out of the dozen contradictory Zeniths which together make up the true and complete Zenith, none is so powerful and enduring yet none so unfamiliar to the citizens as the small, still, dry, polite, cruel Zenith of the William Eathornes; and for that tiny hierarchy the other Zeniths unwittingly labor and insignificantly die.

Most of the castles of the testy Victorian tetrarchs are gone now or decayed into boarding-houses, but the Eathorne Mansion remains virtuous and aloof, reminiscent of London, Back Bay, Rittenhouse Square.  Its marble steps are scrubbed daily, the brass plate is reverently polished, and the lace curtains are as prim and superior as William Washington Eathorne himself.

With a certain awe Babbitt and Chum Frink called on Eathorne for a meeting of the Sunday School Advisory Committee; with uneasy stillness they followed a uniformed maid through catacombs of reception-rooms to the library.  It was as unmistakably the library of a solid old banker as Eathorne’s side-whiskers were the side-whiskers of a solid old banker.  The books were most of them Standard Sets, with the correct and traditional touch of dim blue, dim gold, and glossy calf-skin.  The fire was exactly correct and traditional; a small, quiet, steady fire, reflected by polished fire-irons.  The oak desk was dark and old and altogether perfect; the chairs were gently supercilious.

Eathorne’s inquiries as to the healths of Mrs. Babbitt, Miss Babbitt, and the Other Children were softly paternal, but Babbitt had nothing with which to answer him.  It was indecent to think of using the “How’s tricks, ole socks?” which gratified Vergil Gunch and Frink and Howard Littlefield—­men who till now had seemed successful and urbane.  Babbitt and Frink sat politely, and politely did Eathorne observe, opening his thin lips just wide enough to dismiss the words, “Gentlemen, before we begin our conference—­you may have felt the cold in coming here—­so good of you to save an old man the journey—­shall we perhaps have a whisky toddy?”

So well trained was Babbitt in all the conversation that befits a Good Fellow that he almost disgraced himself with “Rather than make trouble, and always providin’ there ain’t any enforcement officers hiding in the waste-basket—­” The words died choking in his throat.  He bowed in flustered obedience.  So did Chum Frink.

Eathorne rang for the maid.