Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/331

 He shook Martin's hand five or six times and bustled out. Next day he called Martin to his office, shook his hand some more, told Pearl Robbins that they were honored to know him, then led him to a mountain top and showed him all the kingdoms of the world:

"Martin, I have some plans for you. You have been working brilliantly, but without a complete vision of broader humanity. Now the Institute is organized on the most flexible lines. There are no set departments, but only units formed about exceptional men like our good friend Gottlieb. If any new man has the real right thing, we'll provide him with every facility, instead of letting him merely plug along doing individual work. I have given your results the most careful consideration, Martin; I have talked them over with Dr. Gottlieb—though I must say he does not altogether share my enthusiasm about immediate practical results. And I have decided to submit to the Board of Trustees a plan for a Department of Microbic Pathology, with you as head! You will have an assistant—a real trained Ph.D.—and more room and technicians, and you will report to me directly, talk things over with me daily, instead of with Gottlieb. You will be relieved of all war work, by my order—though you can retain your uniform and everything. And your salary will be, I should think, if Mr. McGurk and the other Trustees confirm me, ten thousand a year instead of five.

"Yes, the best room for you would be that big one on the upper floor, to the right of the elevators. That's vacant now. And your office across the hall.

"And all the assistance you require. Why, my boy, you won't need to sit up nights using your hands in this wasteful way, but just think things out and take up possible extensions of the work—cover all the possible fields. We'll extend this to everything! We'll have scores of physicians in hospitals helping us and confirming our results and widening our efforts We might have a weekly council of all these doctors and assistants, with you and me jointly presiding If men like Koch and Pasteur had only had such a system, how much more scope their work might have had! Efficient universal coöperation—that's the thing in science to-day—the time of this silly, jealous, fumbling individual research has gone by.

"My boy, we may have found the real thing—another salvarsan! We'll publish together! We'll have the whole world