“Now, George, I will not have you shouting at me that way!”

“Well, it gets my goat the way women figure out that a man doesn’t do a darn thing but sit on his chair and have lovey-dovey conferences with a lot of classy dames and give ’em the glad eye!”

“I guess you manage to give them a glad enough eye when they do come in.”

“What do you mean?  Mean I’m chasing flappers?”

“I should hope not—­at your age!”

“Now you look here!  You may not believe it—­Of course all you see is fat little Georgie Babbitt.  Sure!  Handy man around the house!  Fixes the furnace when the furnace-man doesn’t show up, and pays the bills, but dull, awful dull!  Well, you may not believe it, but there’s some women that think old George Babbitt isn’t such a bad scout!  They think he’s not so bad-looking, not so bad that it hurts anyway, and he’s got a pretty good line of guff, and some even think he shakes a darn wicked Walkover at dancing!”

“Yes.”  She spoke slowly.  “I haven’t much doubt that when I’m away you manage to find people who properly appreciate you.”

“Well, I just mean—­” he protested, with a sound of denial.  Then he was angered into semi-honesty.  “You bet I do!  I find plenty of folks, and doggone nice ones, that don’t think I’m a weak-stomached baby!”

“That’s exactly what I was saying!  You can run around with anybody you please, but I’m supposed to sit here and wait for you.  You have the chance to get all sorts of culture and everything, and I just stay home—­”

“Well, gosh almighty, there’s nothing to prevent your reading books and going to lectures and all that junk, is there?”

“George, I told you, I won’t have you shouting at me like that!  I don’t know what’s come over you.  You never used to speak to me in this cranky way.”

“I didn’t mean to sound cranky, but gosh, it certainly makes me sore to get the blame because you don’t keep up with things.”

“I’m going to!  Will you help me?”

“Sure.  Anything I can do to help you in the culture-grabbing line—­yours to oblige, G. F. Babbitt.”

“Very well then, I want you to go to Mrs. Mudge’s New Thought meeting with me, next Sunday afternoon.”

“Mrs. Who’s which?”

“Mrs. Opal Emerson Mudge.  The field-lecturer for the American New Thought League.  She’s going to speak on ‘Cultivating the Sun Spirit’ before the League of the Higher Illumination, at the Thornleigh.”

“Oh, punk!  New Thought!  Hashed thought with a poached egg!  ’Cultivating the—­’ It sounds like ‘Why is a mouse when it spins?’ That’s a fine spiel for a good Presbyterian to be going to, when you can hear Doc Drew!”

“Reverend Drew is a scholar and a pulpit orator and all that, but he hasn’t got the Inner Ferment, as Mrs. Mudge calls it; he hasn’t any inspiration for the New Era.  Women need inspiration now.  So I want you to come, as you promised.”