Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/157

 "Well, anyway— Where'd you put it?" asked Mr. Tozer.

"It's up in our room," said Martin.

"Where'd you think we better put it when it's unpacked? The attic is awful' full," Mr. Tozer submitted to Mrs. Tozer.

"Oh, I think Martin could get it in there."

"Why couldn't he put it in the barn?"

"Oh, not a nice new trunk like that!"

"What's the matter with the barn?" said Bert. "It's all nice and dry. Seems a shame to waste all that good space in the barn, now that you've gone and decided he mustn't have his dear little office there!"

"Bertie," from Leora, "I know what we'll do. You seem to have the barn on your brain. You move your old bank there, and Martin'll take the bank building for his office."

"That's entirely different—

"Now there's no sense you two showing off and trying to be smart," protested Mr. Tozer. "Do you ever hear your mother and I scrapping and fussing like that? When do you think you'll have your trunk unpacked, Mart?" Mr. Tozer could consider barns and he could consider trunks but his was not a brain to grasp two such complicated matters at the same time.

"I can get it unpacked to-night, if it makes any difference—"

"Well, I don't suppose it really makes any special difference, but when you start to do a thing—"

"Oh, what difference does it make whether he—"

"If he's going to look for an office, instead of moving right into the barn, he can't take a month of Sundays getting unpacked and—"

"Oh, good Lord, I'll get it done to-night—"

"And I think we can get it in the attic—"

"I tell you it's jam full already—"

"We'll go take a look at it after supper—"

"Well now, I tell you when I tried to get that duck-boat in—"

Martin probably did not scream, but he heard himself screaming. The free and virile land was leagues away and for years forgotten.

To find an office took a fortnight of diplomacy, and of discussion brightening three meals a day, every day. (Not that office-finding was the only thing the Tozers mentioned. They