Sinclair Lewis

“ Under this last, in a pencil scrawl now blurred to grayness, Milt had once written, "This what Ill be aviator."
⁠What he was to wear was a piercing trouble. Till eleven minutes past twelve that day he had not cared. People accepted his overalls at anything except a dance, and at the dances he was the only one who wore pumps. But in his discovery of Claire Boltwood he had perceived that dressing is an art. ”

“ Without quite visualizing either wall or sea, he was yet recalling old dreams of a moonlit wall by a warm stirring southern sea. If there was a girl in the dream she was intangible as the scent of the night. ”

“ But all of this history concerns the year just before American spoke to Germany; and in this town buried among the cornfields and wheat, men still thought more about the price of grain than about the souls of nations.
⁠On the evening before Claire Boltwood left Minneapolis and adventured into democracy, Milt was in the garage. he wore union overalls that were tan where they were not grease-black; a faded blue cotton shirt; and the crown of a derby, with the rim not too neatly hacked off with a dull toad-stabber jack-knife. ”

“ The rest of this town is afraid of new things. 'Member when I suggested we all chip in on a dynamo with a gas engine and have electric lights? The hicks almost died of nervousness."
⁠"Yuh, that's true, but - You stick here, Milt. You and me will just nachly run this burg."
⁠"I'll say! Only - Gosh, Mac, I would like to go to a real show, once. And find out how radio works. And see 'em put in a big suspension bridge!"
⁠Milt left the Old Home rather aimlessly. He told himself he positively would not go back and help Ben Sittka get out the prof's car, and drove the same to the prof's. ”

“ Fierce is the word. Nev' will sleep in my duds again, puss. That is, when I have a reg'lar human bed. Course camping, different. But still - Let's see all the funny things we can do to us."
⁠He shaved - two complete shaves, from lather to towel. He brushed his hair. He sat down by a campfire sheltered between two rocks, and fought his nails though they were discouragingly crammed with motor grease. Throughout this interesting but quite painful ceremony Milt kept up a conversation between himself as the World' Champion Dude, and his cat at Vallay. ”

“ He vaulted out, tucked Vere de Vere into the seat, protecting her from the rain with the tarpaulin winter radiator-cover.
⁠His rut-skipping car overtook the mud-walloping Gomez-Dep in an hour, and pulled it out fo the mud.
⁠Before Milt slept that night, in his camp three miles from Gopher Prairie, he went through religious rites.
⁠"Girl like her, she's darn particular about her looks. I'm a sloppy hound. Used to be snappier about my clothes when I was in high school. Getting lazy - too much like Mac. Think of me sleeping in my clothes last night!" ”

“ Before he had packed, he had unhappily pawed at the prized black suit. It had become stupid. "Undertaker!" he growled.
⁠With a shrug which indicated that he had nothing else, he had exchanged his overalls for a tan flannel shirt, black bow tie, thick pigskin shoes, and the suit he had worn the evening before, his best suit of two years ago - baggy blue serge coat and trousers. He could not know it, but they were surprisingly graceful on his wiry, firm, white body. ”

“ Only, in the triumphant moment when the parted ends of the steel rim snapped back together, he piped, "Going far?"
⁠"Yes, rather. To Seattle."
⁠Milt stared at the cobweb-grayed window. "Now I know what I was planning to do. I'm going to Seattle," he said.
⁠The girl was gone at twenty-nine minutes after twelve. At twenty-nine and a half minutes after, Milt remarked to Ben Sittka, "I'm going to take a trip. Uh? Now don't ask any questions. You take charge of the garage until you hear from me. Get somebody to help you. ”