Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/299

 of medical science," Martin perceived new avenues of exciting research; he stood on a mountain, and unknown valleys, craggy tantalizing paths, were open to his feet.

Dr. and Mrs. Rippleton Holabird invited them to dinner, a week after their coming.

As Holabird's tweeds made Clay Tredgold's smartness seem hard and pretentious, so his dinner revealed Angus Duer's affairs in Chicago as mechanical and joyless and a little anxious. Every one whom Martin met at the Holabirds' flat was a Somebody, though perhaps a minor Somebody: a goodish editor or a rising ethnologist; and all of them had Holabird's graceful casualness.

The provincial Arrowsmiths arrived on time, therefore fifteen minutes early. Before the cocktails appeared, in old Venetian glass, Martin demanded, "Doctor, what problems are you getting after now in your physiology?"

Holabird was transformed into an ardent boy. With a deprecatory "Would you really like to hear about 'em—you needn't be polite, you know!" he dashed into an exposition of his experiments, drawing sketches on the blank spaces in newspaper advertisements, on the back of a wedding invitation, on the fly-leaf of a presentation novel, looking at Martin apologetically, learned yet gay.

"We're working on the localization of brain functions. I think we've gone beyond Bolton and Flechsig. Oh, it's jolly exciting, exploring the brain. Look here!"

His swift pencil was sketching the cerebrum; the brain lived and beat under his fingers.

He threw down the paper. "I say, it's a shame to inflict my hobbies on you. Besides, the others are coming. Tell me, how is your work going? Are you comfortable at the Institute? Do you find you like people?"

"Everybody except— To be frank, I'm jarred by Wickett."

Generously, "I know. His manner is slightly aggressive. But you mustn't mind him; he's really an extraordinarily gifted bio-chemist. He's a bachelor—gives up everything for his work. And he doesn't really mean half the rude things he says. He detests me, among others. Has he mentioned me?"