They have to wash so much they wash off the microbes.

You go home and ask your husbands what smoke puts in their pockets out o' the pay-roll--and you'll come around next time to get me to turn out more smoke instead o' chokin' it off!" It was Narcissism in him to love the city so well; he saw his reflection in it; and, like it, he was grimy, big, careless, rich, strong, and unquenchably optimistic.

From the deepest of his inside all the way out he believed it was the finest city in the world.

"Finest" was his word.
He thought of it as his city as he thought of his family as his family; and just as profoundly believed his city to be the finest city in the world, so did he believe his family to be--in spite of his son Bibbs--the finest family in the world.

As a matter of fact, he knew nothing worth knowing about either.
Bibbs Sheridan was a musing sort of boy, poor in health, and considered the failure--the "odd one"-- of the family.