They roared together, and together lighted cigars.
“What are we going to do with ’em?” Babbitt consulted.
“Gosh, I don’t know. I swear, sometimes I feel like taking Ken aside and putting him over the jumps and saying to him, ‘Young fella me lad, are you going to marry young Rone, or are you going to talk her to death? Here you are getting on toward thirty, and you’re only making twenty or twenty-five a week. When you going to develop a sense of responsibility and get a raise? If there’s anything that George F. or I can do to help you, call on us, but show a little speed, anyway!’”
“Well, at that, it might not be so bad if you or I talked to him, except he might not understand. He’s one of these highbrows. He can’t come down to cases and lay his cards on the table and talk straight out from the shoulder, like you or I can.”
“That’s right, he’s like all these highbrows.”
“That’s so, like all of ’em.”
“That’s a fact.”
They sighed, and were silent and thoughtful and happy.
The conductor came in. He had once called at Babbitt’s office, to ask about houses. “H’ are you, Mr. Babbitt! We going to have you with us to Chicago? This your boy?”
“Yes, this is my son Ted.”