“Still, at that, George, don’t know’s you can afford it.  I’ve heard your business has been kind of under the eye of the gov’ment since you stole the tail of Eathorne Park and sold it!”

“Oh, you’re a great little josher, Verg.  But when it comes to kidding, how about this report that you stole the black marble steps off the post-office and sold ’em for high-grade coal!” In delight Babbitt patted Gunch’s back, stroked his arm.

“That’s all right, but what I want to know is:  who’s the real-estate shark that bought that coal for his apartment-houses?”

“I guess that’ll hold you for a while, George!” said Finkelstein.  “I’ll tell you, though, boys, what I did hear:  George’s missus went into the gents’ wear department at Parcher’s to buy him some collars, and before she could give his neck-size the clerk slips her some thirteens.  ’How juh know the size?’ says Mrs. Babbitt, and the clerk says, ’Men that let their wives buy collars for ’em always wear thirteen, madam.’  How’s that!  That’s pretty good, eh?  How’s that, eh?  I guess that’ll about fix you, George!”

“I—­I—­” Babbitt sought for amiable insults in answer.  He stopped, stared at the door.  Paul Riesling was coming in.  Babbitt cried, “See you later, boys,” and hastened across the lobby.  He was, just then, neither the sulky child of the sleeping-porch, the domestic tyrant of the breakfast table, the crafty money-changer of the Lyte-Purdy conference, nor the blaring Good Fellow, the Josher and Regular Guy, of the Athletic Club.  He was an older brother to Paul Riesling, swift to defend him, admiring him with a proud and credulous love passing the love of women.  Paul and he shook hands solemnly; they smiled as shyly as though they had been parted three years, not three days—­and they said: 

“How’s the old horse-thief?”

“All right, I guess.  How’re you, you poor shrimp?”

“I’m first-rate, you second-hand hunk o’ cheese.”

Reassured thus of their high fondness, Babbitt grunted, “You’re a fine guy, you are!  Ten minutes late!” Riesling snapped, “Well, you’re lucky to have a chance to lunch with a gentleman!” They grinned and went into the Neronian washroom, where a line of men bent over the bowls inset along a prodigious slab of marble as in religious prostration before their own images in the massy mirror.  Voices thick, satisfied, authoritative, hurtled along the marble walls, bounded from the ceiling of lavender-bordered milky tiles, while the lords of the city, the barons of insurance and law and fertilizers and motor tires, laid down the law for Zenith; announced that the day was warm-indeed, indisputably of spring; that wages were too high and the interest on mortgages too low; that Babe Ruth, the eminent player of baseball, was a noble man; and that “those two nuts at the Climax Vaudeville Theater this week certainly are a slick pair of actors.”  Babbitt, though ordinarily his voice was the surest and most episcopal of all, was silent.  In the presence of the slight dark reticence of Paul Riesling, he was awkward, he desired to be quiet and firm and deft.