Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/227

 He was restless. He threw down his magazine. He demanded:

"What're you going to wear at Pickerbaugh's snow-picnic to-morrow?"

"Oh, I haven't— I'll find something."

"Lee, I want to ask you: Why the devil did you say I talked too much at Dr. Strafford's last evening? I know I've got most of the faults going, but I didn't know talking too much was one of 'em."

"It hasn't been, till now."

Till now'!":

"You look here, Sandy Arrowsmith! You've been pouting like a bad brat, all week. What's the matter with you?"

"Well, I— Gosh, it makes me tired! Here everybody is so enthusiastic about my Star of Hope spiel—that note in the Morning Frontiersman, and Pickerbaugh says Orchid said it was a corker—and you never so much as peep!"

"Didn't I applaud? But— It's just that I hope you aren't going to keep up this drooling."

"You do, do you! Well, let me tell you I am going to keep it up! Not that I'm going to talk a lot of hot air. I gave 'em straight science, last Sunday, and they ate it up. I hadn't realized it isn't necessary to be mushy, to hold an audience. And the amount of good you can do! Why, I got across more Health Instruction and ideas about the value of the lab in that three-quarters of an hour than— I don't care for being a big gun but it's fine to have people where they have to listen to what you've got to say and can't butt in, way they did in Wheatsylvania. You bet I'm going to keep up what you so politely call my damn' fool drooling—"

"Sandy, it may be all right for some people, but not for you. I can't tell you—that's one reason why I haven't said more about your talk—I can't tell you how astonished I am to hear you, who're always sneering at what you call sentimentality, simply weeping over the Dear Little Tots!"

"I never said that—never used the phrase and you know it. And by God! You talk about sneering! Just let me tell you that the Public Health Movement, by correcting early faults in children, by looking after their eyes and tonsils and so on, can save millions of lives and make a future generation—"

"I know it! I love children much more than you do! But I mean all this ridiculous simpering—"