Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/362

 Hubert"—her voice was the voice of women in midnight terror—"maybe you won't find anybody that can help you even my little bit, and I'll cook and everything—"

"Darling, don't make it harder for me. Going to be hard enough in any case—"

"Damn you, Sandy Arrowsmith, don't you dare use those old stuck-up expressions that husbands have been drooling out to wives forever and ever! I'm not a wife, any more'n you're a husband. You're a rotten husband! You neglect me absolutely. The only time you know what I've got on is when some doggone button slips—and how they can pull off when a person has gone over 'em and sewed 'em all on again is simply beyond me!—and then you bawl me out. But I don't care. I'd rather have you than any decent husband Besides. I'm going."

Gottlieb opposed it, Sondelius roared about it, Martin worried about it, but Leora went, and—his only act of craftiness as Director of the Institute—Gottlieb made her "Secretary and Technical Assistant to the McGurk Plague and Bacteriophage Commission to the Lesser Antilles," and blandly gave her a salary.

The day before the Commission sailed, Martin insisted that Sondelius take his first injection of phage. He refused.

"No, I will not touch it till you get converted to humanity, Martin, and give it to everybody in St. Hubert. And you will! Wait till you see them suffering by the thousand. You have not seen such a thing. Then you will forget science and try to save everybody. You shall not inject me till you will inject all my negro friends down there too."

That afternoon Gottlieb called Martin in. He spoke with hesitation:

"You're off for Blackwater to-morrow."

"Yes, sir."

"Hm. You may be gone some time. I— Martin, you are my oldest friend in New York, you and the good Miriam. Tell me: At first you and Terry t'ought I should not take up the Directorship. Don't you now t'ink I was wise?"

Martin stared, then hastily he lied and said that which was comforting and expected.

"I am glad you t'ink so. You have known so long what I