Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/274

 soft-soap the people and get their permission to help keep them well. And I won't tell them what a hell of an important thing my work is—that I'm the one thing that saves the whole lot of 'em from dying immediately. Apparently an official in a democratic state has to do those things. Well, I don't! But I've got to think up something or they'll emasculate the whole Department."

One inspiration he did have. If Pickerbaugh were here, he could crush, or lovingly smother, the opposition. He remembered Pickerbaugh's farewell: "Now, my boy, even if I'm way off there in Washington, this Work will be as close to my heart as it ever was, and if you should really need me, you just send for me and I'll drop everything and come."

Martin wrote hinting that he was very much needed.

Pickerbaugh replied by return mail—good old Pickerbaugh!—but the reply was, "I cannot tell you how grieved I am that I cannot for the moment possibly get away from Washington but am sure that in your earnestness you exaggerate strength of opposition, write me freely, at any time."

"That's my last shot," Martin said to Leora. "I'm done. Mayor Pugh will fire me, just as soon as he comes back from his fishing trip. I'm a failure again, darling."

"You're not a failure, and you must eat some of this nice steak, and what shall we do now—time for us to be moving on, anyway—I hate staying in one place," said Leora.

"I don't know what we'll do. Maybe I could get a job at Hunziker's. Or go back to Dakota and try to work up a practise. What I'd like is to become a farmer and get me a big shot-gun and drive every earnest Christian citizen off the place. But meantime I'm going to stick here. I might win yet—with just a couple of miracles and a divine intervention. Oh, God, I am so tired! Are you coming back to the lab with me this evening? Honest, I'll quit early—before eleven, maybe."

He had completed his paper on the streptolysin research, and he took a day off to go to Chicago and talk it over with an editor of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. As he left Nautilus he was confused. He had caught himself rejoicing that he was free of Wheatsylvania and bound for great Nautilus. Time bent back, progress was annihilated, and he was mazed with futility.

The editor praised his paper, accepted it, and suggested only one change. Martin had to wait for his train. He remembered