Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/249

 was tragic. Born in a gutter in Poland, starving in New York, working twenty hours a day in Vermont, in Ohio, in Iowa, he had made this beautiful thing, his dairy.

Seamed, drooping, twirling his hat, almost in tears, he protested, "Dr. Pickerbaugh, I do everything the doctors say is necessary. I know dairies! Now comes this young man and he says because one of my men has a cold, I kill little children with diseased milk! I tell you, this is my life, and I would sooner hang myself than send out one drop of bad milk. The young man has some wicked reason. I have asked questions. I find he is a great friend from the Central Labor Council. Why, he go to their meetings! And they want to break me!"

To Martin the trembling old man was pitiful, but he had never before been accused of treachery. He said grimly:

"You can take up the personal charges against me later, Dr. Pickerbaugh. Meantime I suggest you have in some expert to test my results; say Long of Chicago or Brent of Minneapolis or somebody."

"I—I—I—" The Kipling and Billy Sunday of health looked as distressed as Klopchuk. "I'm sure our friend here doesn't really mean to make charges against you, Mart. He's overwrought, naturally. Can't we just treat the fellow that has the strep infection and not make everybody uncomfortable?"

"All right, if you want a bad epidemic here, toward the end of your campaign!"

"You know cussed well I'd do anything to avoid— Though I want you to distinctly understand it has nothing to do with my campaign for Congress! It's simply that I owe my city the most scrupulous performance of duty in safeguarding it against disease, and the most fearless enforcement—"

At the end of his oratory Pickerbaugh telegraphed to Dr. J. C. Long, the Chicago bacteriologist.

Dr. Long looked as though he had made the train journey in an ice-box. Martin had never seen a man so free from the poetry and flowing philanthropy of Almus Pickerbaugh. He was slim, precise, lipless, lapless, and eye-glassed, and his hair was parted in the middle. He coolly listened to Martin, coldly listened to Pickerbaugh, icily heard Klopchuk, made his inspection, and reported, "Dr. Arrowsmith seems to know his business perfectly, there is certainly a danger here, I advise closing the dairy, my fee is one hundred dollars, thank