“No, business conditions weren’t at all what I’d hoped to find them.”
“Not good, eh?”
“No, not—not really good.”
“That’s a darn shame. Well— I suppose you’re waiting for somebody to take you out to some big shindig, Sir Gerald.”
“Shindig? Oh. Shindig. No, to tell you the truth, I was wondering what the deuce I could do this evening. Don’t know a soul in Tchicahgo. I wonder if you happen to know whether there’s a good theater in this city?”
“Good? Why say, they’re running grand opera right now! I guess maybe you’d like that.”
“Eh? Eh? Went to the opera once in London. Covent Garden sort of thing. Shocking! No, I was wondering if there was a good cinema—movie.”
Babbitt was sitting down, hitching his chair over, shouting, “Movie? Say, Sir Gerald, I supposed of course you had a raft of dames waiting to lead you out to some soirée—”
“God forbid!”
“—but if you haven’t, what do you say you and me go to a movie? There’s a peach of a film at the Grantham: Bill Hart in a bandit picture.”