Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis [146]
“Gosh — JOVE!” said Martin. “I never knew there was such a room!”
Holabird was generous. He did not smile. “Oh, perhaps it’s almost too gorgeous. It’s Capitola’s pet creation — Capitola is Mrs. Ross McGurk, wife of the founder; she’s really an awfully nice woman but she does love Movements and Associations. Terry Wickett, one of the chemists here, calls this ‘Bonanza Hall.’ Yet it does inspire you when you come in to lunch all tired and grubby. Now let’s go call on the Director. He told me to bring you in.”
After the Babylonian splendor of the Hall, Martin expected to find the office of Dr. A. DeWitt Tubbs fashioned like a Roman bath, but it was, except for a laboratory bench at one end, the most rigidly business-like apartment he had ever seen.
Dr. Tubbs was an earnest man, whiskered like a terrier, very scholarly, and perhaps the most powerful American exponent of co-operation in science, but he was also a man of the world, fastidious of boots and waistcoats. He had graduated from Harvard, studied on the Continent, been professor of pathology in the University of Minnesota, president of Hartford University, minister to Venezuela, editor of the Weekly Statesman and president of the Sanity League, finally Director of McGurk.
He was a member both of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and of the Academy of Sciences. Bishops, generals, liberal rabbis, and musical bankers dined with him. He was one of the Distinguished Men to whom the newspapers turned for authoritative interviews on all subjects.
You realized before he had talked to you for ten minutes that here was one of the few leaders of mankind who could discourse on any branch of knowledge, yet could control practical affairs and drive stumbling mankind on to sane and reasonable ideals. Though a Max Gottlieb might in his research show a certain talent, yet his narrowness, his sour and antic humor, kept him from developing the broad view of education, politics, commerce, and all other noble matters which marked Dr. A. DeWitt Tubbs.
But the Director was as cordial to the insignificant Martin Arrowsmith as though Martin were a visiting senator. He shook his hand warmly; he unbent in a smile; his baritone was mellow.
“Dr. Arrowsmith, I trust we shall do more than merely say you are welcome here; I trust we shall show you how welcome you are! Dr. Gottlieb tells me that you have a natural aptitude for cloistered investigation but that you have been looking over the fields of medical practice and public health before you settled down to the laboratory. I can’t tell you how wise I consider you to have made that broad preliminary survey. Too many would-be scientists lack the tutored vision which comes from coordinating all mental domains.”
Martin was dazed to discover that he had been making a broad survey.
“Now you’ll doubtless wish to take some time, perhaps a year or more, in getting into your stride, Dr. Arrowsmith. I shan’t ask you for any reports. So long as Dr. Gottlieb feels that you yourself are satisfied with your progress, I shall be content. Only if there is anything in which I can advise you, from a perhaps somewhat longer career in science, please believe that I shall be delighted to be of aid, and I am quite sure the same obtains with Dr. Holabird here, though he really ought to be jealous, because he is one of our youngest workers — in fact I call him my enfant terrible — but you, I believe, are only thirty-three, and you quite put the poor fellow