formality than the highballs ever called forth.

"Yes," said Babbitt.

Some one of the group took up the unwashed thread of a story he had
been telling; the bartender shoved over a dime and a nickel change
from the quarter, ungarnished with his customary smile; and Babbitt
walked out.

Now, Babbitt had a home and a wife--but that is another story. And I
will tell you that story, which will show you a better habit and a
worse story than you could find in the man who invented the phrase.

It began away up in Sullivan County, where so many rivers and so
much trouble begins--or begin; how would you say that? It was July,
and Jessie was a summer boarder at the Mountain Squint Hotel, and
Bob, who was just out of college, saw her one day--and they were
married in September. That's the tabloid novel--one swallow of
water, and it's gone.

But those July days!

Let the exclamation point expound it, for I shall not. For
particulars you might read up on "Romeo and Juliet," and Abraham
Lincoln's thrilling sonnet about "You can fool some of the people,"
&c., and Darwin's works.

But one thing I must tell you about. Both of them were mad over
Omar's Rubaiyat. They knew every verse of the old bluffer by
heart--not consecutively, but picking 'em out here and there as you