Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/257

 we run into. I certainly don't see why we should be inferior to this bunch, in anything. Darling, except for Clara, maybe, they're nothing but rich bookkeepers! But we're real soldiers of fortune. Your France that you love so much—some day we'll go there, and the French President will be at the N. P. depot to meet us! Why should we let anybody do anything better than we can? Technique!"

They talked for an hour in that drab place, between the poisonous lines of barbed wire.

Next day, when Orchid came into his laboratory and begged, with the wistfulness of youth, "Oh, Dr. Martin, aren't you ever coming to the house again?" he kissed her so briskly, so cheerfully, that even a flapper could perceive that she was unimportant.

Martin realized that he was likely to be the next Director of the Department. Pickerbaugh had told him, "Your work is very satisfactory. There's only one thing you lack, my boy: enthusiasm for getting together with folks and giving a long pull and a strong pull, all together. But perhaps that'll come to you when you have more responsibility."

Martin sought to acquire a delight in giving long strong pulls all together, but he felt like a man who has been dragooned into wearing yellow tights at a civic pageant.

"Gosh, I may be up against it when I become Director," he fretted. "I wonder if there's people who become what's called 'successful' and then hate it? Well, anyway, I'll start a decent system of vital statistics in the department before they get me. I won't lay down! I'll fight! I'll make myself succeed!"