Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (learn to read books txt) 📕

how much the cobbling ought to cost, and the presumable theology, politics, and marital relations of the cobbler.)

Mr. Tozer had from the first known the perfect office. The Norbloms lived above their general store, and Mr. Tozer knew that the Norbloms were thinking of moving. There was indeed nothing that was happening or likely to happen in Wheatsylvania which Mr. Tozer did not know and explain. Mrs. Norblom was tired of keeping house, and she wanted to go to Mrs. Beeson’s boarding house (to the front room, on the right as you went along the upstairs hall, the room with the plaster walls and the nice little stove that Mrs. Beeson bought from Otto Krag for seven dollars and thirty-five cents⁠—no, seven and a quarter it was).

They called on the Norbloms and Mr. Tozer hinted that “it might be nice for the Doctor to locate over the store, if the Norbloms were thinking of making any change⁠—”

The Norbloms stared at each other, with long, bleached, cautious, Scandinavian stares, and grumbled that they “didn’t know⁠—of course it was the finest location in town⁠—” Mr. Norblom admitted that if, against all probability, they ever considered moving, they would probably ask twenty-five dollars a month for the flat, unfurnished.

Mr. Tozer came out of the international conference as craftily joyful as any Mr. Secretary Tozer or Lord Tozer in Washington or London:

“Fine! Fine! We made him commit himself! Twenty-five, he says. That means, when the time’s ripe, we’ll offer him eighteen and close for twenty-one-seventy-five. If we just handle him careful, and give him time to go see Mrs. Beeson and fix up about boarding with her, we’ll have him just where we want him!”

“Oh, if the Norbloms can’t make up their minds, then let’s try something else,” said Martin. “There’s a couple of vacant rooms behind the Eagle office.”

“What? Go chasing around, after we’ve given the Norbloms reason to think we’re serious, and make enemies of ’em for life? Now that would be a fine way to start building up a practice, wouldn’t it? And I must say I wouldn’t blame the Norbloms one bit for getting wild if you let ’em down like that. This ain’t Zenith, where you can go yelling around expecting to get things done in two minutes!”

Through a fortnight, while the Norbloms agonized over deciding to do what they had long ago decided to do, Martin waited, unable to begin work. Until he should open a certified and recognizable office, most of the village did not regard him as a competent physician but as “that son-in-law of Andy Tozer’s.” In the fortnight he was called only once: for the sick-headache of Miss Agnes Ingleblad, aunt and housekeeper of Alec Ingleblad the barber. He was delighted, till Bert Tozer explained:

“Oh, so she called you in, eh? She’s always doctorin’ around. There ain’t a thing the matter with her, but she’s always trying out the latest stunt. Last time it was a fellow that come through here selling pills and liniments out of a Ford, and the time before that it was a faith-healer, crazy loon up here at Dutchman’s Forge, and then for quite a spell she doctored with an osteopath in Leopolis⁠—though I tell you there’s something to this osteopathy⁠—they cure a lot of folks that you regular docs can’t seem to find out what’s the matter with ’em, don’t you think so?”

Martin remarked that he did not think so.

“Oh, you docs!” Bert crowed in his most jocund manner, for Bert could be very joky and bright. “You’re all alike, especially when you’re just out of school and think you know it all. You can’t see any good in chiropractic or electric belts or bonesetters or anything, because they take so many good dollars away from you.”

Then behold the Dr. Martin Arrowsmith who had once infuriated Angus Duer and Irving Watters by his sarcasm on medical standards upholding to a lewdly grinning Bert Tozer the benevolence and scientific knowledge of all doctors; proclaiming that no medicine had ever (at least by any Winnemac graduate) been prescribed in vain nor any operation needlessly performed.

He saw a good deal of Bert now. He sat about the bank, hoping to be called on a case, his fingers itching for bandages. Ada Quist came in with frequency and Bert laid aside his figuring to be coy with her:

“You got to be careful what you even think about, when the doc is here, Ade. He’s been telling me what a whale of a lot of neurology and all that mind-reading stuff he knows. How about it, Mart? I’m getting so scared that I’ve changed the combination on the safe.”

“Heh!” said Ada. “He may fool some folks but he can’t fool me. Anybody can learn things in books, but when it comes to practicing ’em⁠—Let me tell you, Mart, if you ever have one-tenth of the savvy that old Dr. Winter of Leopolis has, you’ll live longer than I expect!”

Together they pointed out that for a person who felt his Zenith training had made him so “gosh-awful smart that he sticks up his nose at us poor hicks of dirt-farmers,” Martin’s scarf was rather badly tied.

All of his own wit and some of Ada’s Bert repeated at the supper table.

“You oughtn’t to ride the boy so hard. Still, that was pretty cute about the necktie⁠—I guess Mart does think he’s some punkins,” chuckled Mr. Tozer.

Leora took Martin aside after supper. “Darlin’, can you stand it? We’ll have our own house, soon as we can. Or shall we vamoose?”

“I’m by golly going to stand it!”

“Um. Maybe. Dear, when you hit Bertie, do be careful⁠—they’ll hang you.”

He ambled to the front porch. He determined to view the rooms behind the Eagle office. Without a retreat in which to be safe from Bert he could not endure another week. He could not wait for the Norbloms to make up their minds, though they had become to him dread and eternal figures whose enmity would crush him; prodigious gods shadowing this Wheatsylvania which was the only perceptible world.

He was aware,