Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis [151]
Ross McGurk was at the time a man of fifty-four, second generation of California railroad men; a graduate of Yale; big, suave, dignified, cheerful, unscrupulous. Even in 1908, when he had founded the Institute, he had had too many houses, too many servants, too much food, and no children, because Capitola considered “that sort of thing detrimental to women with large responsibilities.” In the Institute he found each year more satisfaction, more excuse for having lived.
When Gottlieb arrived, McGurk went up to look him over. McGurk had bullied Dr. Tubbs now and then; Tubbs was compelled to scurry to his office as though he were a messenger boy; yet when he saw the saturnine eyes of Gottlieb, McGurk looked interested; and the two men, the bulky, clothes-conscious, powerful, reticent American and the cynical, simple, power-despising European, became friends. McGurk would slip away from a conference affecting the commerce of a whole West Indian island to sit on a high stool, silent, and watch Gottlieb work.
“Some day when I quit hustling and wake up, I’m going to become your garcon, Max,” said McGurk, and Gottlieb answered, “I don’t know — you haf imagination, Ross, but I t’ink you are too late to get a training in reality. Now if you do not mind eating at Childs’s, we will avoid your very expostulatory Regal Hall, and I shall invite you to lunch.”
But Capitola did not join their communion.
Gottlieb’s arrogance had returned, and with Capitola McGurk he needed it. She had such interesting little problems for her husband’s pensioners to attack. Once, in excitement, she visited Gottlieb’s laboratory to tell him that large numbers of persons die of cancer, and why didn’t he drop this anti-whatever-it-was and find a cure for cancer, which would be ever so nice for all of them.
But her real grievance arose when, after Rippleton Holabird had agreed to give midnight supper on the roof of the Institute to one of her most intellectual dinner-parties, she telephoned to Gottlieb, merely asking, “Would it be too much trouble for you to go down and open your lab, so we can all enjoy just a tiny peep at it?” and he answered:
“It would! Good night!”
Capitola protested to her husband. He listened — at least he seemed to listen — and remarked:
“Cap, I don’t mind your playing the fool with the footmen. They’ve got to stand it. But if you get funny with Max, I’ll simply shut up the whole Institute, and then you won’t have anything to talk about at the Colony Club. And it certainly does beat the deuce that a man worth thirty million dollars — at least a fellow that’s got that much — can’t find a clean pair of pajamas. No, I WON’T have a valet! Oh, please now, Capitola, please quit being high-minded and let me go to sleep, will you!”
But Capitola was uncontrollable, especially in the matter of the monthly dinners which she gave at the Institute.
III
The first of the McGurk Scientific Dinners which Martin and Leora witnessed was a particularly important and explanatory dinner, because the guest of honor was Major–General Sir Isaac Mallard, the London surgeon, who was in America with a British War Mission. He had already beautifully let himself be shown through the Institute; he had been Sir Isaac’d by Dr. Tubbs and every researcher except Terry Wickett; he remembered meeting Rippleton Holabird in London, or said he remembered; and he admired Gladys the Centrifuge.
The dinner began with one misfortune in that Terry Wickett, who hitherto could be depended upon to stay decently away, now appeared, volunteering to the wife of an ex-ambassador, “I simply couldn’t duck this spread, with dear Sir Isaac coming. Say, if I hadn’t told you, you wouldn’t hardly think my dress-suit was rented, would you! Have you noticed that Sir Isaac is getting so he doesn’t tear the carpet with his spurs any more? I wonder if he still kills all his mastoid patients?”
There was vast music, vaster food; there