Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/440

 Dr. Benoni Carr to capture a rich and senile widow for his sanitarium by promising to provide medical consultation from the spirit-world.

Joyce was silent through it all, and so superbly polite that every one was wretched.

Martin struggled to make a liaison between them, and he had no elevating remarks about the strangeness of a man's boasting of his own crookedness, but he was coldly furious when Clif blundered:

'You said old Gottlieb was sort of down on his luck now."

"Yes, he's not very well."

"Poor old coot. But I guess you've realized by now how foolish you were when you used to fall for him like seven and a half brick. Honestly, Lady Arrowsmith, this kid used to think Pa Gottlieb was the cat's pajamas—begging your pardon for the slanguageness."

"What do you mean?" said Martin.

"Oh, I'm onto Gottlieb! Of course you know as well as I do that he always was a self-advertiser, getting himself talked about by confidin' to the whole ops terrara what a strict scientist he was, and putting on a lot of dog and emitting these wise cracks about philosophy and what fierce guys the regular docs were. But what's worse than— Out in San Diego I ran onto a fellow that used to be an instructor in botany in Winnemac, and he told me that with all this antibody stuff of his, Gottlieb never gave any credit to—well, he was some Russian that did most of it before and Pa Gottlieb stole all his stuff."

That in this charge against Gottlieb there was a hint of truth, that he knew the great god to have been at times ungenerous, merely increased the rage which was clenching Martin's fist in his lap.

Three years before, he would have thrown something, but he was an adaptable person. He had yielded to Joyce's training in being quietly instead of noisily disagreeable; and his only comment was "No, I think you're wrong, Clif. Gottlieb has carried the antibody work 'way beyond all the others."

Before the coffee and liqueurs had come into the drawing-room, Joyce begged, at her prettiest, "Mr. Clawson, do you mind awfully if I slip up to bed? I'm so frightfully glad to have had the opportunity of meeting one of my husband's oldest friends, but I'm not feeling very well, and I do think I'd be wise to have some rest."