Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/291

 God give me a restlessness whereby I may neither sleep nor accept praise till my observed results equal my calculated results or in pious glee I discover and assault my error. God give me strength not to trust to God!"

He walked all the way up to their inconsiderable hotel in the Thirties, and all the way the crowds stared at him—this slim, vale, black-eyed, beaming young man who thrust among them, half-running, seeing nothing yet in a blur seeing everything: gallant buildings, filthy streets, relentless traffic, soldiers of fortune, fools, pretty women, frivolous shops, windy sky. His feet raced to the tune of "I've found my work, I've found my work, I've found my work!"

Leora was awaiting him—Leora whose fate it was ever to wait for him in creaky rocking-chairs in cheapish rooms. As he galloped in she smiled, and all her thin, sweet body was illumined. Before he spoke she cried:

"Oh, Sandy, I'm so glad!"

She interrupted his room-striding panegyrics on Max Gottlieb, on the McGurk Institute, on New York, on the charms of staphylolysin, by a meek "Dear, how much are they going to pay you?"

He stopped with a bump. "Gosh! I forgot to ask!"

"Oh!"

"Now you look here! This isn't a Rouncefield Clinic! I hate these buzzards that can't see anything but making money—"

"I know, Sandy. Honestly, I don't care. I was just wondering what kind of a flat we'll be able to afford, so I can begin looking for it. Go on. Dr. Gottlieb said—"

It was three hours after, at eight, when they went to dinner.

The city of magic was to become to Martin neither a city nor any sort of magic but merely a route: their flat, the subway, the Institute, a favorite inexpensive restaurant, a few streets of laundries and delicatessens and movie theaters. But to-night it was a fog of wonder. They dined at the Brevoort, of which Gustaf Sondelius had told him. This was in 1916,