(BABBITT sitting at the breakfast table with family, yelling at them..MAID serving food, MYRA blushing and fanning herself with a helpless look on her face, RONE not paying attention, and TED looking angry)

BABBITT
For the love o' pete, quit poouring the whole sugar bowl on your corn flakes! And while you're admiring yourself, let me tell you it might add to your manly beauty if you wiped some of that egg off your mouth!!

(fade out)

BABBITT
How about it? Shall I wear the brown suit another day?

MYRA
Well, it looks awfully nice on you.

BABBITT
I know, but gosh, it needs pressing.

MYRA
That's so, perhaps it does.

BABBITT
It certainly could stand being pressed, all right.

MYRA
Yes, perhaps it wouldn't hurt it to be pressed.

NARRATOR
His friends were the joy of his life...

FRINK (gravely)
Is someone there?

(a thud)

Is one knock to be the sign for 'yes'?

(a thud)

And two for 'no'?

(a thud)

Now, ladies and gentlemen, shall we ask the guide to put us into communication with the spirit of some great one passed over?

MRS. JONES
Oh, let's talk to Dante! We studied him at the reading circle. You know who he was, Orvy.

BABBITT (haughtily, snobbish, as though he is the smartest of the bunch)
Sure, the fellow that took the Cook's tour to hell. I've never waded through his po'try, but we learned about him at the U.

MRS. SWANSON
You ought to get him easy, Mr. Frink, you and he being fellow poets.

VERG GUNCH (jeering)
Fellow poets, rats! Where d' you get that stuff? I suppose Dante showed a lot of speed for an old timer- not that I've actually read him, of course- but to come right down to hard facts, he wouldn't stand one-two-three if he had to buckle down to practical literature and turn out a poem for the newspaper-syndicate every day, like Chum does.

FRINK
Hush now. I'll call him... (dramatically) O' Laughing Eyes, emerge forth into the, uh, the ultimates and bring hither the spirit of Dante, that we mortals may list to his words of wisdom.

(FRINK looks uneasily around, but all others eyes are closed and concentrating, slow pan around from FRINK to MRS JONES to BABBITT to MRS SWANSON, frame BABBITT and MRS SWANSON together)

MRS. SWANSON (opens her eyes)
Suppose- suppose there were something to this?

BABBITT
Suppose Chum Frink was really one of those spiritualists! Chum had, for a literary felllow, always seemed to be a (emphatically) Regular Guy; he belonged to the Catham Road Presbyterian Church and went to the Boosters' lunches and liked cigars and motors and racy stories. But suppose that secretly- After all, you never could tell about these darn highbrows: and to be and out-and-out spiritualist would be almost like being a socialist!

(everyone nods their heads and clasps hands again and closes their eyes. Fade out)

PAUL
Quit being such a bully!

ZILLA
Yes, a fine figure you'd cut if I didn't bully you! You'd be abed till noon and play your idiotic fiddle till midnight! You're born lazy, and you're born shiftless, and you're born cowardly, Paul Reisling!

MYRA (holding a hankie to her mouth)
Oh, now Zilla, the idea of talking to poor Paul like that!

ZILLA
Poor Paul is right! We'd both be poor, we'd be in the poorhouse if I didn't jazz him up! You're lucky you can let George go and not have to watch him. Fat old Georgie! Never peeps at another woman! Hasn't got the spunk!

BABBITT (jumps up and yells)
I've had enough of all this damn nonsense! You're a fool, can't you see how people snicker at you, and sneer at you?

(the Babbitts leave, the lights dim, PAUL is seen with a gun shooting at ZILLA)

TED
Gosh all fishhooks! Oh punk, I don't see what's the use of finishing high school. I'd like to own a corking garage! That's the real stuff! In school they teach a lot of old junk that isn't any practical use- and in these correspondence courses, gee, you can get all kinds of stuff that would come in handy.

(TED standing, BABBITT and MYRA sitting, MYRA mending stockings)

TED
Well, just suppose I was walking with Mama or Rone, and somebody passed a slighting or used improper language. What would I do?

BABBITT
Why, you'd probably bust the record for the hundred yard dash!

TED
I would not! I'd stand up to any mucker that passed a slighting remark on my sister and I'd show him-

BABBITT
Look here young Dempsey! IF I ever catch you fighting I'll whale the everlasting daylights out of you- and I'll do it without practicing holding out my hand for a coin before the mirror, too!

MYRA
Why, Ted dear, it's not at all nice, your talking of fighting this way.

(TED throws up his hands and sits down, BABBITT leaves the room. Fade out)

END