Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/100

 After an hour of strained festivity, when Dean Silva had risen to announce the speakers, Carr lumbered to his feet and shouted, "Let's not have any speeches. Only fools make speeches. Wise men sing songs. Whoopee! Oh, tireolee, oh, tireolee, oh, tireolee a lady! You profs are the bunk!"

Dean Silva was to be seen beseeching him, then leading him out of the room, with the assistance of two professors and a football tackle, and in the hush of a joyful horror Clif grunted to Martin:

"Here's where I get mine! And the damn' fool promised to stay sober!"

"Huh?"

"I might of known he'd show up stewed and spill the beans. Oh, maybe the dean won't hand me hell proper!"

He explained. Dr. Benoni Carr was born Benno Karkowski. He had graduated from a medical school which gave degrees in two years. He had read vastly, but he had never been in Europe. He had been "spieler" in medicine shows, chiropodist, spiritualist medium, esoteric teacher, head of sanitariums for the diversion of neurotic women. Clif had encountered him in Zenith, when they were both drunk. It was Clif who had told Dean Silva that the celebrated pharmacologist, just back from Europe, was in Zenith for a few days and perhaps might accept an invitation—

The dean had thanked Clif ardently.

The banquet ended early, and there was inadequate attention to Dr. Rouncefield's valuable address on the Sterilization of Catgut.

Clif sat up worrying, and admitting the truth of Martin's several observations. Next day—he had a way with women when he deigned to take the trouble—he pumped the dean's girl secretary, and discovered his fate. There had been a meeting of a faculty committee; the blame for the Benoni Carr outrage had been placed on Clif; and the dean had said all the things Clif had imagined, with a number which he had not possessed the talent to conceive. But the dean was not going to summon him at once; he was going to keep him waiting in torture, then execute him in public.

"Good-by, old M.D. degree! Rats, I never thought much of the doctor business. Guess I'll be a bond salesman," said Clif Martin. He strolled away, he went to the dean, and remarked: