“Oh, you do, do you! Sure! I talk all the time! And I’m just a business man—oh sure!—I’m no Ph.D. like Littlefield, and no poet, and I haven’t anything to spring! Well, let me tell you, just the other day your darn Chum Frink comes up to me at the club begging to know what I thought about the Springfield school-bond issue. And who told him? I did! You bet your life I told him! Little me! I certainly did! He came up and asked me, and I told him all about it! You bet! And he was darn glad to listen to me and— Duty as a host! I guess I know my duty as a host and let me tell you—”
In fact, the Orville Joneses were invited.
II
On the morning of the dinner, Mrs. Babbitt was restive.
“Now, George, I want you to be sure and be home early to-night. Remember, you have to dress.”
“Uh-huh. I see by the Advocate that the Presbyterian General Assembly has voted to quit the Interchurch World Movement. That—”
“George! Did you hear what I said? You must be home in time to dress to-night.”
“Dress? Hell! I’m dressed now! Think I’m going down to the office in my B.V.D.’s?”
“I will not have you talking indecently before the children! And you do have to put on your dinner-jacket!”
“I guess you mean my Tux. I tell you, of all the doggone nonsensical nuisances that was ever invented—”