Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/161

 the word "cigars." North Dakota was, like Mohalis, theoretically dry.

Martin was pleased. He had been sober and industrious so long now!

Wise's shack was a one-story structure, not badly built, half a block from Main Street, with nothing but the railroad track between it and open wheat country. It was lined with pine, pleasant-smelling under the stench of old pipe-smoke. Wise winked—he was a confidential, untrustworthy wisp of a man—and murmured, "Think you could stand a little jolt of first-class Kentucky bourbon?"

"Well, I wouldn't get violent about it."

Wise pulled down the sleazy window-shades and from a warped drawer of his desk brought up a bottle out of which they both drank, wiping the mouth of the bottle with circling palms. Then Wise, abruptly:

"Look here, Doc. You're not like these hicks; you understand that sometimes a fellow gets mixed up in crooked business he didn't intend to. Well, make a long story short, I guess I've sold too much mining stock, and they'll be coming down on me. I've got to be moving—curse it—hoped I could stay settled for couple of years, this time. Well, I hear you're looking for an office. This place would be ideal. Ideal! Two rooms at the back besides this one. I'll rent it to you, furniture and the whole shooting-match, for fifteen dollars a month, if you'll pay me one year in advance. Oh, this ain't phony. Your brother-in-law knows all about my ownership."

Martin tried to be very business-like. Was he not a young doctor who would soon be investing money, one of the most Substantial Citizens in Wheatsylvania? He returned home, and under the parlor lamp, with its green daisies on pink glass, the Tozers listened acutely, Bert stooping forward with open mouth.

"You'd be safe renting it for a year, but that ain't the point," said Bert.

"It certainly isn't! Antagonize the Norbloms, now that they've almost made up their minds to let you have their place? Make me a fool, after all the trouble I've taken?" groaned Mr. Tozer.

They went over it and over it till almost ten o'clock, but Martin was resolute, and the next day he rented Wise's shack.