["[Event happened on 2024-01-01 The user is reading a book]\n<User> I\n\nTHE great events of Babbitt's spring were the secret buying of\nreal-estate options in Linton for certain street-traction officials,\nbefore the public announcement that the Linton Avenue Car Line would be\nextended, and a dinner which was, as he rejoiced to his wife, not only\n\"a regular society spread but a real sure-enough highbrow affair, with\nsome of the keenest intellects and the brightest bunch of little women\nin town.\" It was so absorbing an occasion that he almost forgot his\ndesire to run off to Maine with Paul Riesling. Though he had been born in the village of Catawba, Babbitt had risen\nto that metropolitan social plane on which hosts have as many as four\npeople at dinner without planning it for more than an evening or two. But a dinner of twelve, with flowers from the florist's and all the\ncut-glass out, staggered even the Babbitts. For two weeks they studied, debated, and arbitrated the list of guests. Babbitt marveled, \"Of course we're up-to-date ourselves, but still,\nthink of us entertaining a famous poet like Chum Frink, a fellow that on\nnothing but a poem or so every day and just writing a few advertisements\npulls down fifteen thousand berries a year!\" \"Yes, and Howard Littlefield. Do you know, the other evening Eunice told\nme her papa speaks three languages!\" said Mrs. Babbitt. \"Huh! That's nothing! So do I--American, baseball, and poker!\" \"I don't think it's nice to be funny about a matter like that. Think how\nwonderful it must be to speak three languages, and so useful and--And\nwith people like that, I don't see why we invite the Orville Joneses.\" \"Well now, Orville is a mighty up-and-coming fellow!\" \"Yes, I know, but--A laundry!\" \"I'll admit a laundry hasn't got the class of poetry or real estate,\nbut just the same, Orvy is mighty deep. Ever start him spieling about\ngardening? Say, that fellow can tell you the name of every kind of tree,\nand some of their Greek and Latin names too! Besides, we owe the Joneses\na dinner. Besides, gosh, we got to have some boob for audience, when a\nbunch of hot-air artists like Frink and Littlefield get going.\" \"Well, dear--I meant to speak of this--I do think that as host you ought\nto sit back and listen, and let your guests have a chance to talk once\nin a while!\" \"Oh, you do, do you! Sure! I talk all the time! And I'm just a business\nman--oh sure!--I'm no Ph.D. like Littlefield, and no poet, and I haven't\nanything to spring! Well, let me tell you, just the other day your darn\nChum Frink comes up to me at the club begging to know what I thought\nabout the Springfield school-bond issue. And who told him? I did! You\nbet your life I told him! Little me! I certainly did! He came up and\nasked me, and I told him all about it! You bet! And he was darn glad to\nlisten to me and--Duty as a host! I guess I know my duty as a host and\nlet me tell you--\"\n\nIn fact, the Orville Joneses were invited. II\n\nOn the morning of the dinner, Mrs. Babbitt was restive. \"Now, George, I want you to be sure and be home early tonight. Remember,\nyou have to dress.\" \"Uh-huh. I see by the Advocate that the Presbyterian General Assembly\nhas voted to quit the Interchurch World Movement. That--\"\n\n\"George! Did you hear what I said? You must be home in time to dress\nto-night.\" \"Dress? Hell! I'm dressed now! Think I'm going down to the office in my\nB.V.D.'s?\" \"I will not have you talking indecently before the children! And you do\nhave to put on your dinner-jacket!\" \"I guess you mean my Tux. I tell you, of all the doggone nonsensical\nnuisances that was ever invented--\"\n\nThree minutes later, after Babbitt had wailed, \"Well, I don't know\nwhether I'm going to dress or NOT\" in a manner which showed that he was\ngoing to dress, the discussion moved on. \"Now, George, you mustn't forget to call in at Vecchia's on the way home\nand get the ice cream. Their delivery-wagon is broken down, and I don't\nwant to trust them to send it by--\"\n\n\"All right! You told me that before breakfast!\" \"Well, I don't want you to forget. I'll be working my head off all day\nlong, training the girl that's to help with the dinner--\"\n\n\"All nonsense, anyway, hiring an extra girl for the feed. Matilda could\nperfectly well--\"\n\n\"--and I have to go out and buy the flowers, and fix them, and set\nthe table, and order the salted almonds, and look at the chickens, and\narrange for the children to have their supper upstairs and--And I simply\nmust depend on you to go to Vecchia's for the ice cream.\" \"All riiiiiight! Gosh, I'm going to get it!\" \"All you have to do is to go in and say you want the ice cream that Mrs.\nBabbitt ordered yesterday by 'phone, and it will be all ready for you.\" At ten-thirty she telephoned to him not to forget the ice cream from\nVecchia's. He was surprised and blasted then by a thought. He wondered whether\nFloral Heights dinners were worth the hideous toil involved. But he\nrepented the sacrilege in the excitement of buying the materials for\ncocktails. Now this was the manner of obtaining alcohol under the reign of\nrighteousness and prohibition:\n\nHe drove from the severe rectangular streets of the modern business\ncenter into the tangled byways of Old Town--jagged blocks filled with\nsooty warehouses and lofts; on into The Arbor, once a pleasant orchard\nbut now a morass of lodging-houses, tenements, and brothels. Exquisite\nshivers chilled his spine and stomach, and he looked at every policeman\nwith intense innocence, as one who loved the law, and admired the Force,\nand longed to stop and play with them. He parked his car a block from\nHealey Hanson's saloon, worrying, \"Well, rats, if anybody did see me,\nthey'd think I was here on business.\" He entered a place curiously like the saloons of ante-prohibition days,\nwith a long greasy bar with sawdust in front and streaky mirror behind,\na pine table at which a dirty old man dreamed over a glass of something\nwhich resembled whisky, and with two men at the bar, drinking something\nwhich resembled beer, and giving that impression of forming a large\ncrowd which two men always give in a saloon. The bartender, a tall pale\nSwede with a diamond in his lilac scarf, stared at Babbitt as he stalked\nplumply up to the bar and whispered, \"I'd, uh--Friend of Hanson's sent\nme here. Like to get some gin.\" The bartender gazed down on him in the manner of an outraged bishop. \"I guess you got the wrong place, my friend. We sell nothing but soft\ndrinks here.\" He cleaned the bar with a rag which would itself have done\nwith a little cleaning, and glared across his mechanically moving elbow. The old dreamer at the table petitioned the bartender, \"Say, Oscar,\nlisten.\" Oscar did not listen. \"Aw, say, Oscar, listen, will yuh? Say, lis-sen!\" The decayed and drowsy voice of the loafer, the agreeable stink of\nbeer-dregs, threw a spell of inanition over Babbitt. The bartender moved\ngrimly toward the crowd of two men. Babbitt followed him as delicately\nas a cat, and wheedled, \"Say, Oscar, I want to speak to Mr. Hanson.\" \"Whajuh wanta see him for?\" \"I just want to talk to him. Here's my card.\" It was a beautiful card, an engraved card, a card in the blackest black\nand the sharpest red, announcing that Mr. George F. Babbitt was Estates,\nInsurance, Rents. The bartender held it as though it weighed ten pounds,\nand read it as though it were a hundred words long. He did not bend from\nhis episcopal dignity, but he growled, \"I'll see if he's around.\" From the back room he brought an immensely old young man, a quiet\nsharp-eyed man, in tan silk shirt, checked vest hanging open, and\nburning brown trousers--Mr. Healey Hanson. Mr. Hanson said only \"Yuh?\"\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-01, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-03 The user is reading a book]\n<User> but his implacable and contemptuous eyes queried Babbitt's soul, and he\nseemed not at all impressed by the new dark-gray suit for which (as he\nhad admitted to every acquaintance at the Athletic Club) Babbitt had\npaid a hundred and twenty-five dollars. \"Glad meet you, Mr. Hanson. Say, uh--I'm George Babbitt of the\nBabbitt-Thompson Realty Company. I'm a great friend of Jake Offutt's.\" \"Well, what of it?\" \"Say, uh, I'm going to have a party, and Jake told me you'd be able to\nfix me up with a little gin.\" In alarm, in obsequiousness, as Hanson's\neyes grew more bored, \"You telephone to Jake about me, if you want to.\" Hanson answered by jerking his head to indicate the entrance to the\nback room, and strolled away. Babbitt melodramatically crept into\nan apartment containing four round tables, eleven chairs, a brewery\ncalendar, and a smell. He waited. Thrice he saw Healey Hanson saunter\nthrough, humming, hands in pockets, ignoring him. By this time Babbitt had modified his valiant morning vow, \"I won't pay\none cent over seven dollars a quart\" to \"I might pay ten.\" On Hanson's\nnext weary entrance he besought \"Could you fix that up?\" Hanson scowled,\nand grated, \"Just a minute--Pete's sake--just a min-ute!\" In growing\nmeekness Babbitt went on waiting till Hanson casually reappeared with\na quart of gin--what is euphemistically known as a quart--in his\ndisdainful long white hands. \"Twelve bucks,\" he snapped. \"Say, uh, but say, cap'n, Jake thought you'd be able to fix me up for\neight or nine a bottle.\" \"Nup. Twelve. This is the real stuff, smuggled from Canada. This is\nnone o' your neutral spirits with a drop of juniper extract,\" the honest\nmerchant said virtuously. \"Twelve bones--if you want it. Course y'\nunderstand I'm just doing this anyway as a friend of Jake's.\" \"Sure! Sure! I understand!\" Babbitt gratefully held out twelve dollars. He felt honored by contact with greatness as Hanson yawned, stuffed the\nbills, uncounted, into his radiant vest, and swaggered away. He had a number of titillations out of concealing the gin-bottle under\nhis coat and out of hiding it in his desk. All afternoon he snorted and\nchuckled and gurgled over his ability to \"give the Boys a real shot in\nthe arm to-night.\" He was, in fact, so exhilarated that he was within a\nblock of his house before he remembered that there was a certain\nmatter, mentioned by his wife, of fetching ice cream from Vecchia's. He\nexplained, \"Well, darn it--\" and drove back. Vecchia was not a caterer, he was The Caterer of Zenith. Most coming-out\nparties were held in the white and gold ballroom of the Maison Vecchia;\nat all nice teas the guests recognized the five kinds of Vecchia\nsandwiches and the seven kinds of Vecchia cakes; and all really smart\ndinners ended, as on a resolving chord, in Vecchia Neapolitan ice cream\nin one of the three reliable molds--the melon mold, the round mold like\na layer cake, and the long brick. Vecchia's shop had pale blue woodwork, tracery of plaster roses,\nattendants in frilled aprons, and glass shelves of \"kisses\" with all the\nrefinement that inheres in whites of eggs. Babbitt felt heavy and thick\namid this professional daintiness, and as he waited for the ice cream he\ndecided, with hot prickles at the back of his neck, that a girl customer\nwas giggling at him. He went home in a touchy temper. The first thing he\nheard was his wife's agitated:\n\n\"George! DID you remember to go to Vecchia's and get the ice cream?\" \"Say! Look here! Do I ever forget to do things?\" \"Yes! Often!\" \"Well now, it's darn seldom I do, and it certainly makes me tired, after\ngoing into a pink-tea joint like Vecchia's and having to stand around\nlooking at a lot of half-naked young girls, all rouged up like they were\nsixty and eating a lot of stuff that simply ruins their stomachs--\"\n\n\"Oh, it's too bad about you! I've noticed how you hate to look at pretty\ngirls!\" With a jar Babbitt realized that his wife was too busy to be impressed\nby that moral indignation with which males rule the world, and he\nwent humbly up-stairs to dress. He had an impression of a glorified\ndining-room, of cut-glass, candles, polished wood, lace, silver, roses. With the awed swelling of the heart suitable to so grave a business as\ngiving a dinner, he slew the temptation to wear his plaited dress-shirt\nfor a fourth time, took out an entirely fresh one, tightened his black\nbow, and rubbed his patent-leather pumps with a handkerchief. He glanced\nwith pleasure at his garnet and silver studs. He smoothed and patted\nhis ankles, transformed by silk socks from the sturdy shanks of George\nBabbitt to the elegant limbs of what is called a Clubman. He stood\nbefore the pier-glass, viewing his trim dinner-coat, his beautiful\ntriple-braided trousers; and murmured in lyric beatitude, \"By golly,\nI don't look so bad. I certainly don't look like Catawba. If the hicks\nback home could see me in this rig, they'd have a fit!\" He moved majestically down to mix the cocktails. As he chipped ice, as\nhe squeezed oranges, as he collected vast stores of bottles, glasses,\nand spoons at the sink in the pantry, he felt as authoritative as the\nbartender at Healey Hanson's saloon. True, Mrs. Babbitt said he was\nunder foot, and Matilda and the maid hired for the evening brushed by\nhim, elbowed him, shrieked \"Pleasopn door,\" as they tottered through\nwith trays, but in this high moment he ignored them. Besides the new bottle of gin, his cellar consisted of one half-bottle\nof Bourbon whisky, a quarter of a bottle of Italian vermouth, and\napproximately one hundred drops of orange bitters. He did not possess\na cocktail-shaker. A shaker was proof of dissipation, the symbol of a\nDrinker, and Babbitt disliked being known as a Drinker even more than\nhe liked a Drink. He mixed by pouring from an ancient gravy-boat into a\nhandleless pitcher; he poured with a noble dignity, holding his alembics\nhigh beneath the powerful Mazda globe, his face hot, his shirt-front a\nglaring white, the copper sink a scoured red-gold. He tasted the sacred essence. \"Now, by golly, if that isn't pretty\nnear one fine old cocktail! Kind of a Bronx, and yet like a Manhattan. Ummmmmm! Hey, Myra, want a little nip before the folks come?\" Bustling into the dining-room, moving each glass a quarter of an\ninch, rushing back with resolution implacable on her face her gray and\nsilver-lace party frock protected by a denim towel, Mrs. Babbitt glared\nat him, and rebuked him, \"Certainly not!\" \"Well,\" in a loose, jocose manner, \"I think the old man will!\" The cocktail filled him with a whirling exhilaration behind which he\nwas aware of devastating desires--to rush places in fast motors, to kiss\ngirls, to sing, to be witty. He sought to regain his lost dignity by\nannouncing to Matilda:\n\n\"I'm going to stick this pitcher of cocktails in the refrigerator. Be\nsure you don't upset any of 'em.\" \"Yeh.\" \"Well, be sure now. Don't go putting anything on this top shelf.\" \"Yeh.\" \"Well, be--\" He was dizzy. His voice was thin and distant. \"Whee!\" With\nenormous impressiveness he commanded, \"Well, be sure now,\" and minced\ninto the safety of the living-room. He wondered whether he could\npersuade \"as slow a bunch as Myra and the Littlefields to go some place\naft' dinner and raise Cain and maybe dig up smore booze.\" He perceived\nthat he had gifts of profligacy which had been neglected. By the time the guests had come, including the inevitable late couple\nfor whom the others waited with painful amiability, a great gray\nemptiness had replaced the purple swirling in Babbitt's head, and he had\nto force the tumultuous greetings suitable to a host on Floral Heights.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-03, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-04 The user is reading a book]\n<User> The guests were Howard Littlefield, the doctor of philosophy who\nfurnished publicity and comforting economics to the Street Traction\nCompany; Vergil Gunch, the coal-dealer, equally powerful in the Elks\nand in the Boosters' Club; Eddie Swanson the agent for the Javelin Motor\nCar, who lived across the street; and Orville Jones, owner of the Lily\nWhite Laundry, which justly announced itself \"the biggest, busiest,\nbulliest cleanerie shoppe in Zenith.\" But, naturally, the most\ndistinguished of all was T. Cholmondeley Frink, who was not only the\nauthor of \"Poemulations,\" which, syndicated daily in sixty-seven leading\nnewspapers, gave him one of the largest audiences of any poet in the\nworld, but also an optimistic lecturer and the creator of \"Ads that\nAdd.\" Despite the searching philosophy and high morality of his verses,\nthey were humorous and easily understood by any child of twelve; and it\nadded a neat air of pleasantry to them that they were set not as verse\nbut as prose. Mr. Frink was known from Coast to Coast as \"Chum.\" With them were six wives, more or less--it was hard to tell, so early in\nthe evening, as at first glance they all looked alike, and as they all\nsaid, \"Oh, ISN'T this nice!\" in the same tone of determined liveliness. To the eye, the men were less similar: Littlefield, a hedge-scholar,\ntall and horse-faced; Chum Frink, a trifle of a man with soft and\nmouse-like hair, advertising his profession as poet by a silk cord on\nhis eye-glasses; Vergil Gunch, broad, with coarse black hair en brosse;\nEddie Swanson, a bald and bouncing young man who showed his taste\nfor elegance by an evening waistcoat of figured black silk with glass\nbuttons; Orville Jones, a steady-looking, stubby, not very memorable\nperson, with a hemp-colored toothbrush mustache. Yet they were all so\nwell fed and clean, they all shouted \"'Evenin', Georgie!\" with such\nrobustness, that they seemed to be cousins, and the strange thing is\nthat the longer one knew the women, the less alike they seemed;\nwhile the longer one knew the men, the more alike their bold patterns\nappeared. The drinking of the cocktails was as canonical a rite as the mixing. The\ncompany waited, uneasily, hopefully, agreeing in a strained manner that\nthe weather had been rather warm and slightly cold, but still Babbitt\nsaid nothing about drinks. They became despondent. But when the late\ncouple (the Swansons) had arrived, Babbitt hinted, \"Well, folks, do you\nthink you could stand breaking the law a little?\" They looked at Chum Frink, the recognized lord of language. Frink pulled\nat his eye-glass cord as at a bell-rope, he cleared his throat and said\nthat which was the custom:\n\n\"I'll tell you, George: I'm a law-abiding man, but they do say Verg\nGunch is a regular yegg, and of course he's bigger 'n I am, and I just\ncan't figure out what I'd do if he tried to force me into anything\ncriminal!\" Gunch was roaring, \"Well, I'll take a chance--\" when Frink held up his\nhand and went on, \"So if Verg and you insist, Georgie, I'll park my car\non the wrong side of the street, because I take it for granted that's\nthe crime you're hinting at!\" There was a great deal of laughter. Mrs. Jones asserted, \"Mr. Frink is\nsimply too killing! You'd think he was so innocent!\" Babbitt clamored, \"How did you guess it, Chum? Well, you-all just wait\na moment while I go out and get the--keys to your cars!\" Through a froth\nof merriment he brought the shining promise, the mighty tray of glasses\nwith the cloudy yellow cocktails in the glass pitcher in the center. The\nmen babbled, \"Oh, gosh, have a look!\" and \"This gets me right where I\nlive!\" and \"Let me at it!\" But Chum Frink, a traveled man and not unused\nto woes, was stricken by the thought that the potion might be merely\nfruit-juice with a little neutral spirits. He looked timorous as\nBabbitt, a moist and ecstatic almoner, held out a glass, but as he\ntasted it he piped, \"Oh, man, let me dream on! It ain't true, but don't\nwaken me! Jus' lemme slumber!\" Two hours before, Frink had completed a newspaper lyric beginning:\n\n\"I sat alone and groused and thunk, and scratched my head and sighed\nand wunk, and groaned, There still are boobs, alack, who'd like the\nold-time gin-mill back; that den that makes a sage a loon, the vile and\nsmelly old saloon! I'll never miss their poison booze, whilst I the\nbubbling spring can use, that leaves my head at merry morn as clear as\nany babe new-born!\" Babbitt drank with the others; his moment's depression was gone; he\nperceived that these were the best fellows in the world; he wanted to\ngive them a thousand cocktails. \"Think you could stand another?\" he\ncried. The wives refused, with giggles, but the men, speaking in a wide,\nelaborate, enjoyable manner, gloated, \"Well, sooner than have you get\nsore at me, Georgie--\"\n\n\"You got a little dividend coming,\" said Babbitt to each of them, and\neach intoned, \"Squeeze it, Georgie, squeeze it!\" When, beyond hope, the pitcher was empty, they stood and talked about\nprohibition. The men leaned back on their heels, put their hands in\ntheir trousers-pockets, and proclaimed their views with the booming\nprofundity of a prosperous male repeating a thoroughly hackneyed\nstatement about a matter of which he knows nothing whatever. \"Now, I'll tell you,\" said Vergil Gunch; \"way I figure it is this, and\nI can speak by the book, because I've talked to a lot of doctors and\nfellows that ought to know, and the way I see it is that it's a good\nthing to get rid of the saloon, but they ought to let a fellow have beer\nand light wines.\" Howard Littlefield observed, \"What isn't generally realized is that it's\na dangerous prop'sition to invade the rights of personal liberty. Now, take this for instance: The King of--Bavaria? I think it was\nBavaria--yes, Bavaria, it was--in 1862, March, 1862, he issued a\nproclamation against public grazing of live-stock. The peasantry had\nstood for overtaxation without the slightest complaint, but when this\nproclamation came out, they rebelled. Or it may have been Saxony. But\nit just goes to show the dangers of invading the rights of personal\nliberty.\" \"That's it--no one got a right to invade personal liberty,\" said Orville\nJones. \"Just the same, you don't want to forget prohibition is a mighty good\nthing for the working-classes. Keeps 'em from wasting their money and\nlowering their productiveness,\" said Vergil Gunch. \"Yes, that's so. But the trouble is the manner of enforcement,\" insisted\nHoward Littlefield. \"Congress didn't understand the right system. Now,\nif I'd been running the thing, I'd have arranged it so that the drinker\nhimself was licensed, and then we could have taken care of the shiftless\nworkman--kept him from drinking--and yet not 've interfered with the\nrights--with the personal liberty--of fellows like ourselves.\" They bobbed their heads, looked admiringly at one another, and stated,\n\"That's so, that would be the stunt.\" \"The thing that worries me is that a lot of these guys will take to\ncocaine,\" sighed Eddie Swanson. They bobbed more violently, and groaned, \"That's so, there is a danger\nof that.\" Chum Frink chanted, \"Oh, say, I got hold of a swell new receipt for\nhome-made beer the other day. You take--\"\n\nGunch interrupted, \"Wait! Let me tell you mine!\" Littlefield snorted,\n\"Beer! Rats! Thing to do is to ferment cider!\" Jones insisted, \"I've\ngot the receipt that does the business!\" Swanson begged, \"Oh, say, lemme\ntell you the story--\" But Frink went on resolutely, \"You take and save\nthe shells from peas, and pour six gallons of water on a bushel of\nshells and boil the mixture till--\"\n\nMrs. Babbitt turned toward them with yearning sweetness; Frink hastened\nto finish even his best beer-recipe; and she said gaily, \"Dinner is\nserved.\"\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-04, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-06 The user is reading a book]\n<User> There was a good deal of friendly argument among the men as to which\nshould go in last, and while they were crossing the hall from the\nliving-room to the dining-room Vergil Gunch made them laugh by\nthundering, \"If I can't sit next to Myra Babbitt and hold her hand under\nthe table, I won't play--I'm goin' home.\" In the dining-room they stood\nembarrassed while Mrs. Babbitt fluttered, \"Now, let me see--Oh, I was\ngoing to have some nice hand-painted place-cards for you but--Oh, let me\nsee; Mr. Frink, you sit there.\" The dinner was in the best style of women's-magazine art, whereby the\nsalad was served in hollowed apples, and everything but the invincible\nfried chicken resembled something else. Ordinarily the men found it hard\nto talk to the women; flirtation was an art unknown on Floral Heights,\nand the realms of offices and of kitchens had no alliances. But under\nthe inspiration of the cocktails, conversation was violent. Each of the\nmen still had a number of important things to say about prohibition, and\nnow that each had a loyal listener in his dinner-partner he burst out:\n\n\"I found a place where I can get all the hootch I want at eight a\nquart--\"\n\n\"Did you read about this fellow that went and paid a thousand dollars\nfor ten cases of red-eye that proved to be nothing but water? Seems this\nfellow was standing on the corner and fellow comes up to him--\"\n\n\"They say there's a whole raft of stuff being smuggled across at\nDetroit--\"\n\n\"What I always say is--what a lot of folks don't realize about\nprohibition--\"\n\n\"And then you get all this awful poison stuff--wood alcohol and\neverything--\"\n\n\"Course I believe in it on principle, but I don't propose to have\nanybody telling me what I got to think and do. No American 'll ever\nstand for that!\" But they all felt that it was rather in bad taste for Orville Jones--and\nhe not recognized as one of the wits of the occasion anyway--to say, \"In\nfact, the whole thing about prohibition is this: it isn't the initial\ncost, it's the humidity.\" Not till the one required topic had been dealt with did the conversation\nbecome general. It was often and admiringly said of Vergil Gunch, \"Gee, that fellow can\nget away with murder! Why, he can pull a Raw One in mixed company and\nall the ladies 'll laugh their heads off, but me, gosh, if I crack\nanything that's just the least bit off color I get the razz for fair!\" Now Gunch delighted them by crying to Mrs. Eddie Swanson, youngest\nof the women, \"Louetta! I managed to pinch Eddie's doorkey out of his\npocket, and what say you and me sneak across the street when the folks\naren't looking? Got something,\" with a gorgeous leer, \"awful important\nto tell you!\" The women wriggled, and Babbitt was stirred to like naughtiness. \"Say,\nfolks, I wished I dared show you a book I borrowed from Doc Patten!\" \"Now, George! The idea!\" Mrs. Babbitt warned him. \"This book--racy isn't the word! It's some kind of an anthropological\nreport about--about Customs, in the South Seas, and what it doesn't SAY! It's a book you can't buy. Verg, I'll lend it to you.\" \"Me first!\" insisted Eddie Swanson. \"Sounds spicy!\" Orville Jones announced, \"Say, I heard a Good One the other day about\na coupla Swedes and their wives,\" and, in the best Jewish accent, he\nresolutely carried the Good One to a slightly disinfected ending. Gunch capped it. But the cocktails waned, the seekers dropped back into\ncautious reality. Chum Frink had recently been on a lecture-tour among the small towns,\nand he chuckled, \"Awful good to get back to civilization! I certainly\nbeen seeing some hick towns! I mean--Course the folks there are the\nbest on earth, but, gee whiz, those Main Street burgs are slow, and you\nfellows can't hardly appreciate what it means to be here with a bunch of\nlive ones!\" \"You bet!\" exulted Orville Jones. \"They're the best folks on earth,\nthose small-town folks, but, oh, mama! what conversation! Why, say,\nthey can't talk about anything but the weather and the ne-oo Ford, by\nheckalorum!\" \"That's right. They all talk about just the same things,\" said Eddie\nSwanson. \"Don't they, though! They just say the same things over and over,\" said\nVergil Gunch. \"Yes, it's really remarkable. They seem to lack all power of looking at\nthings impersonally. They simply go over and over the same talk about\nFords and the weather and so on.\" said Howard Littlefield. \"Still, at that, you can't blame 'em. They haven't got any intellectual\nstimulus such as you get up here in the city,\" said Chum Frink. \"Gosh, that's right,\" said Babbitt. \"I don't want you highbrows to get\nstuck on yourselves but I must say it keeps a fellow right up on his\ntoes to sit in with a poet and with Howard, the guy that put the con\nin economics! But these small-town boobs, with nobody but each other to\ntalk to, no wonder they get so sloppy and uncultured in their speech,\nand so balled-up in their thinking!\" Orville Jones commented, \"And, then take our other advantages--the\nmovies, frinstance. These Yapville sports think they're all-get-out if\nthey have one change of bill a week, where here in the city you got your\nchoice of a dozen diff'rent movies any evening you want to name!\" \"Sure, and the inspiration we get from rubbing up against high-class\nhustlers every day and getting jam full of ginger,\" said Eddie Swanson. \"Same time,\" said Babbitt, \"no sense excusing these rube burgs too easy. Fellow's own fault if he doesn't show the initiative to up and beat it\nto the city, like we done--did. And, just speaking in confidence among\nfriends, they're jealous as the devil of a city man. Every time I go up\nto Catawba I have to go around apologizing to the fellows I was brought\nup with because I've more or less succeeded and they haven't. And if you\ntalk natural to 'em, way we do here, and show finesse and what you might\ncall a broad point of view, why, they think you're putting on side. There's my own half-brother Martin--runs the little ole general store my\nDad used to keep. Say, I'll bet he don't know there is such a thing as\na Tux--as a dinner-jacket. If he was to come in here now, he'd think we\nwere a bunch of--of--Why, gosh, I swear, he wouldn't know what to think! Yes, sir, they're jealous!\" Chum Frink agreed, \"That's so. But what I mind is their lack of culture\nand appreciation of the Beautiful--if you'll excuse me for being\nhighbrow. Now, I like to give a high-class lecture, and read some of my\nbest poetry--not the newspaper stuff but the magazine things. But say,\nwhen I get out in the tall grass, there's nothing will take but a lot of\ncheesy old stories and slang and junk that if any of us were to indulge\nin it here, he'd get the gate so fast it would make his head swim.\" Vergil Gunch summed it up: \"Fact is, we're mighty lucky to be living\namong a bunch of city-folks, that recognize artistic things and\nbusiness-punch equally. We'd feel pretty glum if we got stuck in some\nMain Street burg and tried to wise up the old codgers to the kind of\nlife we're used to here. But, by golly, there's this you got to say for\n'em: Every small American town is trying to get population and modern\nideals. And darn if a lot of 'em don't put it across! Somebody starts\npanning a rube crossroads, telling how he was there in 1900 and it\nconsisted of one muddy street, count 'em, one, and nine hundred human\nclams. Well, you go back there in 1920, and you find pavements and a\nswell little hotel and a first-class ladies' ready-to-wear shop--real\nperfection, in fact! You don't want to just look at what these small\ntowns are, you want to look at what they're aiming to become, and they\nall got an ambition that in the long run is going to make 'em the finest\nspots on earth--they all want to be just like Zenith!\"\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-06, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-09 The user is reading a book]\n<User> III\n\nHowever intimate they might be with T. Cholmondeley Frink as a neighbor,\nas a borrower of lawn-mowers and monkey-wrenches, they knew that he was\nalso a Famous Poet and a distinguished advertising-agent; that behind\nhis easiness were sultry literary mysteries which they could not\npenetrate. But to-night, in the gin-evolved confidence, he admitted them\nto the arcanum:\n\n\"I've got a literary problem that's worrying me to death. I'm doing a\nseries of ads for the Zeeco Car and I want to make each of 'em a real\nlittle gem--reg'lar stylistic stuff. I'm all for this theory that\nperfection is the stunt, or nothing at all, and these are as tough\nthings as I ever tackled. You might think it'd be harder to do my\npoems--all these Heart Topics: home and fireside and happiness--but\nthey're cinches. You can't go wrong on 'em; you know what sentiments\nany decent go-ahead fellow must have if he plays the game, and you stick\nright to 'em. But the poetry of industrialism, now there's a literary\nline where you got to open up new territory. Do you know the fellow\nwho's really THE American genius? The fellow who you don't know his\nname and I don't either, but his work ought to be preserved so's future\ngenerations can judge our American thought and originality to-day? Why,\nthe fellow that writes the Prince Albert Tobacco ads! Just listen to\nthis:\n\nIt's P.A. that jams such joy in jimmy pipes. Say--bet you've often\nbent-an-ear to that spill-of-speech about hopping from five to\nf-i-f-t-y p-e-r by \"stepping on her a bit!\" Guess that's going some, all\nright--BUT just among ourselves, you better start a rapidwhiz system\nto keep tabs as to how fast you'll buzz from low smoke spirits to\nTIP-TOP-HIGH--once you line up behind a jimmy pipe that's all aglow with\nthat peach-of-a-pal, Prince Albert. Prince Albert is john-on-the-job--always joy'usly more-ISH in flavor;\nalways delightfully cool and fragrant! For a fact, you never hooked such\ndouble-decked, copper-riveted, two-fisted smoke enjoyment! Go to a pipe--speed-o-quick like you light on a good thing! Why--packed\nwith Prince Albert you can play a joy'us jimmy straight across the\nboards! AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!\" \"Now that,\" caroled the motor agent, Eddie Swanson, \"that's what I call\nhe-literature! That Prince Albert fellow--though, gosh, there can't\nbe just one fellow that writes 'em; must be a big board of classy\nink-slingers in conference, but anyway: now, him, he doesn't write for\nlong-haired pikers, he writes for Regular Guys, he writes for ME, and I\ntip my benny to him! The only thing is: I wonder if it sells the goods? Course, like all these poets, this Prince Albert fellow lets his idea\nrun away with him. It makes elegant reading, but it don't say nothing. I'd never go out and buy Prince Albert Tobacco after reading it, because\nit doesn't tell me anything about the stuff. It's just a bunch of\nfluff.\" Frink faced him: \"Oh, you're crazy! Have I got to sell you the idea of\nStyle? Anyway that's the kind of stuff I'd like to do for the Zeeco. But\nI simply can't. So I decided to stick to the straight poetic, and I took\na shot at a highbrow ad for the Zeeco. How do you like this:\n\nThe long white trail is calling--calling--and it's over the hills and far\naway for every man or woman that has red blood in his veins and on his\nlips the ancient song of the buccaneers. It's away with dull drudging,\nand a fig for care. Speed--glorious Speed--it's more than just a\nmoment's exhilaration--it's Life for you and me! This great new truth\nthe makers of the Zeeco Car have considered as much as price and style. It's fleet as the antelope, smooth as the glide of a swallow, yet\npowerful as the charge of a bull-elephant. Class breathes in every line. Listen, brother! You'll never know what the high art of hiking is till\nyou TRY LIFE'S ZIPPINGEST ZEST--THE ZEECO!\" \"Yes,\" Frink mused, \"that's got an elegant color to it, if I do say\nso, but it ain't got the originality of 'spill-of-speech!'\" The whole\ncompany sighed with sympathy and admiration.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-09, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far."]
[{"question": "Summarize the content of the book I read from 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-09", "answer": "Babbitts, George Babbitt, Myra Babbitt, highbrow dinner, party planning, Prohibition, gin, cocktails, Old Town, saloon, Healey Hanson, expensive gin, ice cream, intoxication, gloom, Howard Littlefield, Vergil Gunch, Eddie Swanson, Orville Jones, T. Cholmondeley Frink, wives, dinner guests, Zeeco car company, advertising, confession, modern city life, immoral act, party preparation, discouragement, excitement, significant objects, key relationships, important decisions"}]