The Turmoil by Booth Tarkington Page A

into a chair after the outburst, his big chest surging, his throat tumultuous with gutteral incoherences. “Now then,” he said, huskily, when the anguish had somewhat abated, “what do you want to do?”
    “Sir?”
    “What do you WANT to do, I said.”
    Taken by surprise, Bibbs stammered. “What—what do—I—what—”
    “If I’d let you do exactly what you had the whim for, what would you do?”
    Bibbs looked startled; then timidity overwhelmed him—a profound shyness. He bent his head and fixed his lowered eyes upon the toe of his shoe, which he moved to and fro upon the rug, like a culprit called to the desk in school.
    “What would you do? Loaf?”
    “No, sir.” Bibbs’s voice was almost inaudible, and what little sound it made was unquestionably a guilty sound. “I suppose I’d—I’d—”
    “Well?”
    “I suppose I’d try to—to write.”
    “Write what?”
    “Nothing important—just poems and essays, perhaps.”
    “That all?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I see,” said his father, breathing quickly with the restraint he was putting upon himself. “That is, you want to write, but you don’t want to write anything of any account.”
    “You think—”
    Sheridan got up again. “I take my hat off to the man that can write a good ad,” he said, emphatically. “The best writin’ talent in this country is right spang in the ad business to-day. You buy a magazine for good writin’—look on the back of it! Let me tell you I pay money for that kind o’ writin’. Maybe you think it’s easy. Just try it! I’ve tried it, and I can’t do it. I tell you an ad’s got to be written so it makes people do the hardest thing in this world to GET ‘em to do: it’s got to make ‘em give up their MONEY! You talk about ‘poems and essays.’ I tell you when it comes to the actual skill o’ puttin’ words together so as to make things HAPPEN, R. T. Bloss, right here in this city, knows more in a minute than George Waldo Emerson ever knew in his whole life!”
    “You—you may be—” Bibbs said, indistinctly, the last word smothered in a cough.
    “Of COURSE I’m right! And if it ain’t just like you to want to take up with the most out-o’-date kind o’ writin’ there is! ‘Poems and essays’! My Lord, Bibbs, that’s WOMEN’S work! You can’t pick up a newspaper without havin’ to see where Mrs. Rumskididle read a paper on ‘Jane Eyre,’ or ‘East Lynne,’ at the God-Knows-What Club. And ‘poetry’! Why, look at Edith! I expect that poem o’ hers would set a pretty high-water mark for you, young man, and it’s the only one she’s ever managed to write in her whole LIFE! When I wanted her to go on and write some more she said it took too much time. Said it took months and months. And Edith’s a smart girl; she’s got more energy in her little finger than you ever give me a chance to see in your whole body, Bibbs. Now look at the facts: say she could turn out four or five poems a year and you could turn out maybe two. That medal she got was worth about fifteen dollars, so there’s your income —thirty dollars a year! That’s a fine success to make of your life! I’m not sayin’ a word against poetry. I wouldn’t take ten thousand dollars right now for that poem of Edith’s; and poetry’s all right enough in its place—but you leave it to the girls. A man’s got to do a man’s work in this world!”
    He seated himself in a chair at his son’s side and, leaning over, tapped Bibbs confidentially on the knee. “This city’s got the greatest future in America, and if my sons behave right by me and by themselves they’re goin’ to have a mighty fair share of it—a mighty fair share. I love this town. It’s God’s own footstool, and it’s made money for me every day right along, I don’t know how many years. I love it like I do my own business, and I’d fight for it as quick as I’d fight for my own family. It’s a beautiful town. Look at our wholesale district;