“Oh, yes, that’s so.  But tell me:  what did you say to them?”

“Oh, you don’t want to hear it.  I’m probably boring you to death with my troubles!  You wouldn’t hardly think I was an old duffer; I sound like a kid!”

“Oh, you’re a boy yet.  I mean—­you can’t be a day over forty-five.”

“Well, I’m not—­much.  But by golly I begin to feel middle-aged sometimes; all these responsibilities and all.”

“Oh, I know!” Her voice caressed him; it cloaked him like warm silk.  “And I feel lonely, so lonely, some days, Mr. Babbitt.”

“We’re a sad pair of birds!  But I think we’re pretty darn nice!”

“Yes, I think we’re lots nicer than most people I know!” They smiled.  “But please tell me what you said at the Club.”

“Well, it was like this:  Course Seneca Doane is a friend of mine—­they can say what they want to, they can call him anything they please, but what most folks here don’t know is that Senny is the bosom pal of some of the biggest statesmen in the world—­Lord Wycombe, frinstance—­you know, this big British nobleman.  My friend Sir Gerald Doak told me that Lord Wycombe is one of the biggest guns in England—­well, Doak or somebody told me.”

“Oh!  Do you know Sir Gerald?  The one that was here, at the McKelveys’?”

“Know him?  Well, say, I know him just well enough so we call each other George and Jerry, and we got so pickled together in Chicago—­”

“That must have been fun.  But—­” She shook a finger at him. “—­I can’t have you getting pickled!  I’ll have to take you in hand!”

“Wish you would! . . .  Well, zize saying:  You see I happen to know what a big noise Senny Doane is outside of Zenith, but of course a prophet hasn’t got any honor in his own country, and Senny, darn his old hide, he’s so blame modest that he never lets folks know the kind of an outfit he travels with when he goes abroad.  Well, during the strike Clarence Drum comes pee-rading up to our table, all dolled up fit to kill in his nice lil cap’n’s uniform, and somebody says to him, ’Busting the strike, Clarence?’

“Well, he swells up like a pouter-pigeon and he hollers, so ’s you could hear him way up in the reading-room, ’Yes, sure; I told the strike-leaders where they got off, and so they went home.’

“‘Well,’ I says to him, ‘glad there wasn’t any violence.’

“‘Yes,’ he says, ’but if I hadn’t kept my eye skinned there would ’ve been.  All those fellows had bombs in their pockets.  They’re reg’lar anarchists.’

“‘Oh, rats, Clarence,’ I says, ’I looked ’em all over carefully, and they didn’t have any more bombs ‘n a rabbit,’ I says.  ‘Course,’ I says, ‘they’re foolish, but they’re a good deal like you and me, after all.’

“And then Vergil Gunch or somebody—­no, it was Chum Frink—­you know, this famous poet—­great pal of mine—­he says to me, ‘Look here,’ he says, ‘do you mean to say you advocate these strikes?’ Well, I was so disgusted with a fellow whose mind worked that way that I swear, I had a good mind to not explain at all—­just ignore him—­”