Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/247

 Martin was reading this article, trying to realize that it was actually exposed in a fabulous New York magazine, with a million circulation, when Pickerbaugh summoned him.

"Mart," he said, "do you feel competent to run this Department?"

"Why, uh—"

"Do you think you can buck the Interests and keep a clean city all by yourself?"

"Why, uh—"

"Because it looks as if I were going to Washington, as the next congressman from this district!"

"Really?"

"Looks that way. Boy, I'm going to take to the whole nation the Message I've tried to ram home here!"

Martin got out quite a good "I congratulate you." He was so astonished that it sounded fervent. He still had a fragment of his boyhood belief that congressmen were persons of intelligence and importance.

"I've just been in conference with some of the leading Republicans of the district. Great surprise to me. Ha, ha, ha! Maybe they picked me because they haven't anybody else to run this year. Ha, ha, ha!"

Martin also laughed. Pickerbaugh looked as though that was not exactly the right response, but he recovered and caroled on:

"I said to them, 'Gentlemen, I must warn you that I am not sure I possess the rare qualifications needful in a man who shall have the high privilege of laying down, at Washington, the rules and regulations for the guidance, in every walk of life, of this great nation of a hundred million people. However, gentlemen,' I said, 'the impulse that prompts me to consider, in all modesty, your unexpected and probably undeserved honor is the fact that it seems to me that what Congress needs is more forward-looking scientists to plan and more genu-ine trained business men to execute the improvements demanded by our evolving commonwealth, and also the possibility of persuading the Boys there at Washington of the preeminent and crying need of a Secretary of Health who shall completely control—

But no matter what Martin thought about it, the Republicans really did nominate Pickerbaugh for Congress.