Sinclair Lewis: Main Street

10. CHAPTER X (continued)

"I meet old Ezra Stowbody on the street. He looks at me like he wants me to remember he's a highmuckamuck and worth two hundred thousand dollars, and he says, `Uh, Bjornquist----'

"`Bjornstam's my name, Ezra,' I says. HE knows my name, all rightee.

"`Well, whatever your name is,' he says, `I understand you have a gasoline saw. I want you to come around and saw up four cords of maple for me,' he says.

"`So you like my looks, eh?' I says, kind of innocent.

"`What difference does that make? Want you to saw that wood before Saturday,' he says, real sharp. Common workman going and getting fresh with a fifth of a million dollars all walking around in a hand-me-down fur coat!

"`Here's the difference it makes,' I says, just to devil him. `How do you know I like YOUR looks?' Maybe he didn't look sore! Nope,' I says, `thinking it all over, I don't like your application for a loan. Take it to another bank, only there ain't any,' I says, and I walks off on him.

"Sure. Probably I was surly--and foolish. But I figured there had to be ONE man in town independent enough to sass the banker!"

He hitched out of his chair, made coffee, gave Carol a cup, and talked on, half defiant and half apologetic, half wistful for friendliness and half amused by her surprise at the discovery that there was a proletarian philosophy.

At the door, she hinted:

"Mr. Bjornstam, if you were I, would you worry when people thought you were affected?"

"Huh? Kick 'em in the face! Say, if I were a sea-gull, and all over silver, think I'd care what a pack of dirty seals thought about my flying?"