Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/156

 Leora intruded: "Look here, Papa. I want you to lend us one thousand dollars, outright, to use as we see fit." The sensation was immense. "We'll pay you six per cent—no, we won't; we'll pay you five; that's enough."

"And mortgages bringing six, seven, and eight!" Bert quavered.

"Five's enough. And we want our own say, absolute, as to how we use it—to fit up an office or anything else."

Mr. Tozer began, "That's a foolish way to—"

Bert took it away from him: "Ory, you're crazy! I suppose we'll have to lend you some money, but you'll blame well come to us for it from time to time, and you'll blame well take our advice—"

Leora rose. "Either you do what I say, just exactly what I say, or Mart and I take the first train and go back to Zenith, and I mean it! Plenty of places open for him there, with a big salary, so we won't have to be dependent on anybody!"

There was much conversation, most of which sounded like all the rest of it. Once Leora started for the stairs, to go up and pack; once Martin and she stood waving their napkins as they shook their fists, the general composition remarkably like the Laocoön.

Leora won.

They settled down to the most solacing fussing.

"Did you bring your trunk up from the depot?" asked Mr. Tozer

"No sense leaving it there—paying two bits a day storage!" fumed Bert.

"I got it up this morning," said Martin.

"Oh, yes, Martin had it brought up this morning," agreed Mrs. Tozer.

"You had it brought? Didn't you bring it up yourself?" agonized Mr. Tozer.

"No. I had the fellow that runs the lumberyard haul it up for me," said Martin.

"Well, gosh almighty, you could just as well've put it on a wheelbarrow and brought it up yourself and saved a quarter!" said Bert.

"But a doctor has to keep his dignity," said Leora.

"Dignity, rats! Blame sight more dignified to be seen shoving a wheelbarrow than smoking them dirty cigarettes all the time!"