Kingsblood Royal (1947) by Sinclair Lewis

Title: Kingsblood Royal (1947)Author: Sinclair Lewis* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 0200171.txtLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: February 2002Date most recently updated: February 2002This eBook was produced by: Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico.caProject Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.htmlTo contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au--------------------------------------------------------------------------Title: Kingsblood Royal (1947)Author: Sinclair Lewis1Mr. Blingham, and may he fry in his own cooking-oil, was assistanttreasurer of the Flaver-Saver Company. He was driving from NewYork to Winnipeg, accompanied by Mrs. Blingham and their horribledaughter. As they were New Yorkers, only a business trip couldhave dragged them into this wilderness, and they found everythingwest of Pennsylvania contemptible. They laughed at Chicago fordaring to have skyscrapers and at Madison for pretending to have auniversity, and they stopped the car and shrieked when they enteredMinnesota and saw a billboard advertising "Ten Thousand Lakes."Miss Blingham, whom they called "Sister," commented, "Unless youhad a New York sense of humor, you would never be able tounderstand why that sign is so funny!"When they came to their first prairie hamlet in Minnesota, sixcottages, a garage, a store and a tall red grain elevator, Mrs.Blingham giggled, "Why, they've got an Empire State Building here!""And all the Svensons and Bensons and Hensons go up to the RainbowRoom every evening!" gurgled Sister.

Their laughter buoyed them for a hundred miles, till it was time tothink of lunch. Miss Blingham looked at the map. "Grand Republic,Minnesota. That seems to be about forty miles from here, and it'squite a village--85,000 people.""Let's try it. They ought to have some sort of a hotel to eat at,"yawned Mr. Blingham."All the best people there eat at the Salvation Army Shelter!"yelped Mrs. Blingham."Oh, you slay me!" said Sister.When, from the bluffs of the Sorshay River, they looked down to thelimestone shaft of the Blue Ox National Bank Building and thewelter of steel and glass sheds that had been erected for theWargate Wood Products Corporation since 1941, Mr. Blingham said,"Fair-sized war plant they got there."Since the beginning of World War II, Grand Republic had grown from85,000 to 90,000. To some ninety thousand immortal souls, it wasthe center of the universe, and all distances were to be measuredfrom it; Moscow was defined as a place 6,100 miles from Home, andSaudi Arabia as a market for Wargate wallboard and huts andpropellers. The Blinghams, who knew that the true center of thesolar system is the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventhStreet, would have been irritated to find out how many of thesimpletons in the valley below them believed that New Yorkcontained nothing but hotels, burlesque shows, a ghetto and WallStreet.Mrs. Blingham urged, "Come on. We can't waste all day looking atthis dump. The hotel-guide gives the Pineland as the best placefor chow. Let's try it."They did not notice them, but on the way to the Pineland they musthave passed scrollwork palaces of 1880, an Italian Catholic Church,a pawn-shop in which a Lithuanian lumberjack had recently pawnedthe Luger pistol with which he had murdered a Siamese mining-campcook, the best women's dress-shop between Fort William and Dallas,a Victoria Cross aviator, and a Negro clergyman who was a Doctor ofPhilosophy.In front of the tapestry-brick, nine-storied Hotel Pineland(designed by Lefleur, O'Flaherty, and Zipf of Minneapolis), Mr.Blingham said doubtfully, "Well, I suppose we can get SOME kind ofgrub here."They thought it very funny that the more choosy of the tworestaurants in the Pineland should presumptuously be named "TheFiesole Room," though they would not have found it funny if theyhad known that locally it was pronounced "Feesoly," because thatwas how the Blinghams pronounced it, also.The Fiesole Room had, for cinquecento atmosphere, Pompeian-redwalls, majolica dishes, a Spanish wine-jar on either side of thedoorway, and a frieze of antique Grecian runners done by a local

portrait-painter."My, my, don't they put on the dog in--what's the name of this townagain?" mocked Sister."Grand Rapids," said Mr. Blingham."No, that's the furniture, where Aunt Ella comes from. This," saidMrs. Blingham authoritatively, after looking at the map, "is GrandRepublic.""What a silly name!" pronounced Sister. "Sounds like Fourthajuly.Oh, God, these hicks!"They were elaborately escorted to a table by the headwaiter, adignified, erect colored man whose head resembled a brown billiardball. They did not know that he was Drexel Greenshaw, the leaderof the conservative wing of the Negro Community. He looked like abishop, like a general, like a senator, any of whom he might havebeen if he had chosen another calling than table-waiting andanother color.Mr. Blingham had the Hungarian goulash. Mrs. Blingham was bold inthe matter of roast lamb. Sister took the chicken salad, snappingat the colored waiter, "And do try to have a little chicken in it,will yuh?"They found it highly comic that the waiter bowed, and said, "Yes,Miss." They could not have explained why they found it comic. Asthey said, "You have to be a New Yorker to understand our Sense ofHumor. A nigger hash-hustler in a dump like this making like hewas at the Ritz!"It is true that in New York, on their evenings of festival, theydid not dine at the Ritz but at a Schrafft's.Toying delicately with her chicken salad, but finishing all of itas well as all the rolls, Sister looked cynically about the FiesoleRoom."Mm, mm! Respected parents, will you look at the table to myright? Please buy him for me--the young one."The person whom she had thus favored was an amiable man of thirtywith solid shoulders and freckled paws and the clear skin thatoften goes with red hair like his. You thought of football, latertempered by tennis. But what you most noticed was the singularinnocence of his blue eyes and the innocence and enthusiasm of hissmile."He looks like a Scotch army officer," approved Sister. "He oughtto be wearing kilts.""Sister! And he looks to me like a shoe-clerk," sniffed Mrs.Blingham.With that, they forgot the young man, who was neither a shoe-clerknor more than a quarter Scotch. He was a junior bank officer named