He was worrying as to whether Miss McGoun wasn’t paying too much for carbon paper. He was at once resenting and missing the persistent teasing at the Roughnecks’ Table. He was wondering what Zilla Riesling was doing now. He was wondering whether, after the summer’s maturity of being a garageman, Ted would “get busy” in the university. He was thinking of his wife. “If she would only--if she wouldn’t be so darn satisfied with just settling down-- No! I won’t! I won’t go back! I’ll be fifty in three years. Sixty in thirteen years. I’m going to have some fun before it’s too late. I don’t care! I will!” He thought of Ida Putiak, of Louetta Swanson, of that nice widow--what was her name?--Tanis Judique?--the one for whom he’d found the flat. He was enmeshed in imaginary conversations. Then: “Gee, I can’t seem to get away from thinking about folks!” Thus it came to him merely to run away was folly, because he could never run away from himself. That moment he started for Zenith. In his journey there was no appearance of flight, but he was fleeing, and four days afterward he was on the Zenith train. He knew that he was slinking back not because it was what he longed to do but because it was all he could do. He scanned again his discovery that he could never run away from Zenith and family and office, because in his own brain he bore the office and the family and every street and disquiet and illusion of Zenith. “But I’m going to--oh, I’m going to start something!” he vowed, and he tried to make it valiant. CHAPTER XXVI I As he walked through the train, looking for familiar faces, he saw only one person whom he knew, and that was Seneca Doane, the lawyer who, after the blessings of being in Babbitt’s own class at college and of becoming a corporation-counsel, had turned crank, had headed farmer-labor tickets and fraternized with admitted socialists. Though he was in rebellion, naturally Babbitt did not care to be seen talking with such a fanatic, but in all the Pullmans he could find no other acquaintance, and reluctantly he halted. Seneca Doane was a slight, thin-haired man, rather like Chum Frink except that he hadn’t Frink’s grin. He was reading a book called “The Way of All Flesh.” It looked religious to Babbitt, and he wondered if Doane could possibly have been converted and turned decent and patriotic. “Why, hello, Doane,” he said. Doane looked up. His voice was curiously kind. “Oh! How do, Babbitt.” “Been away, eh?” “Yes, I’ve been in Washington.” “Washington, eh? How’s the old Government making out?” “It’s-- Won’t you sit down?” “Thanks. Don’t care if I do. Well, well! Been quite a while since I’ve had a good chance to talk to you, Doane. I was, uh-- Sorry you didn’t turn up at the last class-dinner.” “Oh--thanks.” “How’s the unions coming? Going to run for mayor again?” Doane seemed restless. He was fingering the pages of his book. He said “I might” as though it didn’t mean anything in particular, and he smiled.