CHAPTER XIV

by Sinclair Lewis

　　SHE was marching home."No. I couldn't fall in love with him. I like him, very much. Buthe's too much of a recluse. Could I kiss him? No! No! Guy Pollock attwenty-six I could have kissed him then, maybe, even if I were marriedto some one else, and probably I'd have been glib in persuading myselfthat 'it wasn't really wrong.'"The amazing thing is that I'm not more amazed at myself. I, thevirtuous young matron. Am I to be trusted? If the Prince Charmingcame----"A Gopher Prairie housewife, married a year, and yearning for a 'PrinceCharming' like a bachfisch of sixteen! They say that marriage is a magicchange. But I'm not changed. But----"No! I wouldn't want to fall in love, even if the Prince did come. Iwouldn't want to hurt Will. I am fond of Will. I am! He doesn't stir me,not any longer. But I depend on him. He is home and children."I wonder when we will begin to have children? I do want them."I wonder whether I remembered to tell Bea to have hominy tomorrow,instead of oatmeal? She will have gone to bed by now. Perhaps I'll be upearly enough----"Ever so fond of Will. I wouldn't hurt him, even if I had to lose themad love. If the Prince came I'd look once at him, and run. Darn fast!Oh, Carol, you are not heroic nor fine. You are the immutable vulgaryoung female."But I'm not the faithless wife who enjoys confiding that she's'misunderstood.' Oh, I'm not, I'm not!"Am I?"At least I didn't whisper to Guy about Will's faults and his blindnessto my remarkable soul. I didn't! Matter of fact, Will probablyunderstands me perfectly! If only--if he would just back me up inrousing the town."How many, how incredibly many wives there must be who tingle over thefirst Guy Pollock who smiles at them. No! I will not be one of thatherd of yearners! The coy virgin brides. Yet probably if the Prince wereyoung and dared to face life----"I'm not half as well oriented as that Mrs. Dillon. So obviously adoringher dentist! And seeing Guy only as an eccentric fogy."They weren't silk, Mrs. Dillon's stockings. They were lisle. Her legsare nice and slim. But no nicer than mine. I hate cotton tops on silkstockings. . . . Are my ankles getting fat? I will NOT have fat ankles!"No. I am fond of Will. His work--one farmer he pulls through diphtheriais worth all my yammering for a castle in Spain. A castle with baths."This hat is so tight. I must stretch it. Guy liked it."There's the house. I'm awfully chilly. Time to get out the fur coat.I wonder if I'll ever have a beaver coat? Nutria is NOT the same thing!Beaver-glossy. Like to run my fingers over it. Guy's mustache likebeaver. How utterly absurd!"I am, I AM fond of Will, and----Can't I ever find another word than'fond'?"He's home. He'll think I was out late."Why can't he ever remember to pull down the shades? Cy Bogart and allthe beastly boys peeping in. But the poor dear, he's absent-minded aboutminute--minush--whatever the word is. He has so much worry and work,while I do nothing but jabber to Bea."I MUSTN'T forget the hominy----"She was flying into the hall. Kennicott looked up from the Journal ofthe American Medical Society."Hello! What time did you get back?" she cried."About nine. You been gadding. Here it is past eleven!" Good-natured yetnot quite approving."Did it feel neglected?""Well, you didn't remember to close the lower draft in the furnace.""Oh, I'm so sorry. But I don't often forget things like that, do I?"She dropped into his lap and (after he had jerked back his head to savehis eye-glasses, and removed the glasses, and settled her in a positionless cramping to his legs, and casually cleared his throat) he kissedher amiably, and remarked:"Nope, I must say you're fairly good about things like that. I wasn'tkicking. I just meant I wouldn't want the fire to go out on us. Leavethat draft open and the fire might burn up and go out on us. And thenights are beginning to get pretty cold again. Pretty cold on my drive.I put the side-curtains up, it was so chilly. But the generator isworking all right now.""Yes. It is chilly. But I feel fine after my walk.""Go walking?""I went up to see the Perrys." By a definite act of will she addedthe truth: "They weren't in. And I saw Guy Pollock. Dropped into hisoffice.""Why, you haven't been sitting and chinning with him till eleveno'clock?""Of course there were some other people there and----Will! What do youthink of Dr. Westlake?""Westlake? Why?""I noticed him on the street today.""Was he limping? If the poor fish would have his teeth X-rayed, I'll betnine and a half cents he'd find an abscess there. 'Rheumatism' he callsit. Rheumatism, hell! He's behind the times. Wonder he doesn't bleedhimself! Wellllllll----" A profound and serious yawn. "I hate to breakup the party, but it's getting late, and a doctor never knows when he'llget routed out before morning." (She remembered that he had given thisexplanation, in these words, not less than thirty times in the year.) "Iguess we better be trotting up to bed. I've wound the clock and lookedat the furnace. Did you lock the front door when you came in?"They trailed up-stairs, after he had turned out the lights and twicetested the front door to make sure it was fast. While they talkedthey were preparing for bed. Carol still sought to maintain privacy byundressing behind the screen of the closet door. Kennicott was not soreticent. Tonight, as every night, she was irritated by having to pushthe old plush chair out of the way before she could open the closetdoor. Every time she opened the door she shoved the chair. Ten times anhour. But Kennicott liked to have the chair in the room, and there wasno place for it except in front of the closet.She pushed it, felt angry, hid her anger. Kennicott was yawning, moreportentously. The room smelled stale. She shrugged and became chatty:"You were speaking of Dr. Westlake. Tell me--you've never summed him up:Is he really a good doctor?""Oh yes, he's a wise old coot."("There! You see there is no medical rivalry. Not in my house!" she saidtriumphantly to Guy Pollock.)She hung her silk petticoat on a closet hook, and went on, "Dr. Westlakeis so gentle and scholarly----""Well, I don't know as I'd say he was such a whale of a scholar. I'vealways had a suspicion he did a good deal of four-flushing about that.He likes to have people think he keeps up his French and Greek and Lordknows what all; and he's always got an old Dago book lying around thesitting-room, but I've got a hunch he reads detective stories 'bout likethe rest of us. And I don't know where he'd ever learn so dog-gone manylanguages anyway! He kind of lets people assume he went to Harvardor Berlin or Oxford or somewhere, but I looked him up in the medicalregister, and he graduated from a hick college in Pennsylvania, 'wayback in 1861!""But this is the important thing: Is he an honest doctor?""How do you mean 'honest'? Depends on what you mean.""Suppose you were sick. Would you call him in? Would you let me call himin?""Not if I were well enough to cuss and bite, I wouldn't! No, SIR! Iwouldn't have the old fake in the house. Makes me tired, his everlastingpalavering and soft-soaping. He's all right for an ordinary bellyacheor holding some fool woman's hand, but I wouldn't call him in for anhonest-to-God illness, not much I wouldn't, NO-sir! You know I don'tdo much back-biting, but same time----I'll tell you, Carrrie: I've nevergot over being sore at Westlake for the way he treated Mrs. Jonderquist.Nothing the matter with her, what she really needed was a rest, butWestlake kept calling on her and calling on her for weeks, almost everyday, and he sent her a good big fat bill, too, you can bet! I neverdid forgive him for that. Nice decent hard-working people like theJonderquists!"In her batiste nightgown she was standing at the bureau engaged in theinvariable rites of wishing that she had a real dressing-table with atriple mirror, of bending toward the streaky glass and raising her chinto inspect a pin-head mole on her throat, and finally of brushing herhair. In rhythm to the strokes she went on:"But, Will, there isn't any of what you might call financial rivalrybetween you and the partners--Westlake and McGanum--is there?"He flipped into bed with a solemn back-somersault and a ludicrous kickof his heels as he tucked his legs under the blankets. He snorted, "Lordno! I never begrudge any man a nickel he can get away from me--fairly.""But is Westlake fair? Isn't he sly?""Sly is the word. He's a fox, that boy!"She saw Guy Pollock's grin in the mirror. She flushed.Kennicott, with his arms behind his head, was yawning:"Yump. He's smooth, too smooth. But I bet I make prett' near as muchas Westlake and McGanum both together, though I've never wanted to grabmore than my just share. If anybody wants to go to the partners insteadof to me, that's his business. Though I must say it makes me tired whenWestlake gets hold of the Dawsons. Here Luke Dawson had been coming tome for every toeache and headache and a lot of little things that justwasted my time, and then when his grandchild was here last summer andhad summer-complaint, I suppose, or something like that, probably--youknow, the time you and I drove up to Lac-qui-Meurt--why, Westlake gothold of Ma Dawson, and scared her to death, and made her think the kidhad appendicitis, and, by golly, if he and McGanum didn't operate, andholler their heads off about the terrible adhesions they found, and whata regular Charley and Will Mayo they were for classy surgery. They leton that if they'd waited two hours more the kid would have developedperitonitis, and God knows what all; and then they collected a nicefat hundred and fifty dollars. And probably they'd have charged threehundred, if they hadn't been afraid of me! I'm no hog, but I certainlydo hate to give old Luke ten dollars' worth of advice for a dollar and ahalf, and then see a hundred and fifty go glimmering. And if I can't doa better 'pendectomy than either Westlake or McGanum, I'll eat my hat!"As she crept into bed she was dazzled by Guy's blazing grin. Sheexperimented:"But Westlake is cleverer than his son-in-law, don't you think?""Yes, Westlake may be old-fashioned and all that, but he's got a certainamount of intuition, while McGanum goes into everything bull-headed, andbutts his way through like a damn yahoo, and tries to argue his patientsinto having whatever he diagnoses them as having! About the best thingMac can do is to stick to baby-snatching. He's just about on a par withthis bone-pounding chiropractor female, Mrs. Mattie Gooch.""Mrs. Westlake and Mrs. McGanum, though--they're nice. They've beenawfully cordial to me.""Well, no reason why they shouldn't be, is there? Oh, they're niceenough--though you can bet your bottom dollar they're both plugging fortheir husbands all the time, trying to get the business. And I don'tknow as I call it so damn cordial in Mrs. McGanum when I holler at heron the street and she nods back like she had a sore neck. Still, she'sall right. It's Ma Westlake that makes the mischief, pussyfooting aroundall the time. But I wouldn't trust any Westlake out of the whole lot,and while Mrs. McGanum SEEMS square enough, you don't never want toforget that she's Westlake's daughter. You bet!""What about Dr. Gould? Don't you think he's worse than either Westlakeor McGanum? He's so cheap--drinking, and playing pool, and alwayssmoking cigars in such a cocky way----""That's all right now! Terry Gould is a good deal of a tin-horn sport,but he knows a lot about medicine, and don't you forget it for onesecond!"She stared down Guy's grin, and asked more cheerfully, "Is he honest,too?""Ooooooooooo! Gosh I'm sleepy!" He burrowed beneath the bedclothes ina luxurious stretch, and came up like a diver, shaking his head, ashe complained, "How's that? Who? Terry Gould honest? Don't start melaughing--I'm too nice and sleepy! I didn't say he was honest. I saidhe had savvy enough to find the index in 'Gray's Anatomy,' which is morethan McGanum can do! But I didn't say anything about his being honest.He isn't. Terry is crooked as a dog's hind leg. He's done me more thanone dirty trick. He told Mrs. Glorbach, seventeen miles out, that Iwasn't up-to-date in obstetrics. Fat lot of good it did him! She cameright in and told me! And Terry's lazy. He'd let a pneumonia patientchoke rather than interrupt a poker game.""Oh no. I can't believe----""Well now, I'm telling you!""Does he play much poker? Dr. Dillon told me that Dr. Gould wanted himto play----""Dillon told you what? Where'd you meet Dillon? He's just come to town.""He and his wife were at Mr. Pollock's tonight.""Say, uh, what'd you think of them? Didn't Dillon strike you as prettylight-waisted?""Why no. He seemed intelligent. I'm sure he's much more wide-awake thanour dentist.""Well now, the old man is a good dentist. He knows his business. AndDillon----I wouldn't cuddle up to the Dillons too close, if I were you.All right for Pollock, and that's none of our business, but we----Ithink I'd just give the Dillons the glad hand and pass 'em up.""But why? He isn't a rival.""That's--all--right!" Kennicott was aggressively awake now. "He'll workright in with Westlake and McGanum. Matter of fact, I suspect theywere largely responsible for his locating here. They'll be sending himpatients, and he'll send all that he can get hold of to them. I don'ttrust anybody that's too much hand-in-glove with Westlake. You giveDillon a shot at some fellow that's just bought a farm here and driftsinto town to get his teeth looked at, and after Dillon gets through withhim, you'll see him edging around to Westlake and McGanum, every time!"Carol reached for her blouse, which hung on a chair by the bed. Shedraped it about her shoulders, and sat up studying Kennicott, her chinin her hands. In the gray light from the small electric bulb down thehall she could see that he was frowning."Will, this is--I must get this straight. Some one said to me the otherday that in towns like this, even more than in cities, all the doctorshate each other, because of the money----""Who said that?""It doesn't matter.""I'll bet a hat it was your Vida Sherwin. She's a brainy woman, butshe'd be a damn sight brainier if she kept her mouth shut and didn't letso much of her brains ooze out that way.""Will! O Will! That's horrible! Aside from the vulgarity----Some ways,Vida is my best friend. Even if she HAD said it. Which, as a matter offact, she didn't." He reared up his thick shoulders, in absurd pink andgreen flannelette pajamas. He sat straight, and irritatingly snapped hisfingers, and growled:"Well, if she didn't say it, let's forget her. Doesn't make anydifference who said it, anyway. The point is that you believe it. God!To think you don't understand me any better than that! Money!"("This is the first real quarrel we've ever had," she was agonizing.)He thrust out his long arm and snatched his wrinkly vest from a chair.He took out a cigar, a match. He tossed the vest on the floor. Helighted the cigar and puffed savagely. He broke up the match and snappedthe fragments at the foot-board.She suddenly saw the foot-board of the bed as the foot-stone of thegrave of love.The room was drab-colored and ill-ventilated--Kennicott did not "believein opening the windows so darn wide that you heat all outdoors." Thestale air seemed never to change. In the light from the hall they weretwo lumps of bedclothes with shoulders and tousled heads attached.She begged, "I didn't mean to wake you up, dear. And please don't smoke.You've been smoking so much. Please go back to sleep. I'm sorry.""Being sorry 's all right, but I'm going to tell you one or two things.This falling for anybody's say-so about medical jealousy and competitionis simply part and parcel of your usual willingness to think the worstyou possibly can of us poor dubs in Gopher Prairie. Trouble with womenlike you is, you always want to ARGUE. Can't take things the way theyare. Got to argue. Well, I'm not going to argue about this in any way,shape, manner, or form. Trouble with you is, you don't make any effortto appreciate us. You're so damned superior, and think the city is sucha hell of a lot finer place, and you want us to do what YOU want, allthe time----""That's not true! It's I who make the effort. It's they--it's you--whostand back and criticize. I have to come over to the town's opinion;I have to devote myself to their interests. They can't even SEE myinterests, to say nothing of adopting them. I get ever so excited abouttheir old Lake Minniemashie and the cottages, but they simply guffaw (inthat lovely friendly way you advertise so much) if I speak of wanting tosee Taormina also.""Sure, Tormina, whatever that is--some nice expensive millionairecolony, I suppose. Sure; that's the idea; champagne taste and beerincome; and make sure that we never will have more than a beer income,too!""Are you by any chance implying that I am not economical?""Well, I hadn't intended to, but since you bring it up yourself, I don'tmind saying the grocery bills are about twice what they ought to be.""Yes, they probably are. I'm not economical. I can't be. Thanks to you!""Where d' you get that 'thanks to you'?""Please don't be quite so colloquial--or shall I say VULGAR?""I'll be as damn colloquial as I want to. How do you get that 'thanks toyou'? Here about a year ago you jump me for not remembering to give youmoney. Well, I'm reasonable. I didn't blame you, and I SAID I was toblame. But have I ever forgotten it since--practically?""No. You haven't--practically! But that isn't it. I ought to have anallowance. I will, too! I must have an agreement for a regular statedamount, every month.""Fine idea! Of course a doctor gets a regular stated amount! Sure! Athousand one month--and lucky if he makes a hundred the next.""Very well then, a percentage. Or something else. No matter how much youvary, you can make a rough average for----""But what's the idea? What are you trying to get at? Mean to say I'munreasonable? Think I'm so unreliable and tightwad that you've got totie me down with a contract? By God, that hurts! I thought I'd beenpretty generous and decent, and I took a lot of pleasure--thinks I,'she'll be tickled when I hand her over this twenty'--or fifty, orwhatever it was; and now seems you been wanting to make it a kind ofalimony. Me, like a poor fool, thinking I was liberal all the while, andyou----""Please stop pitying yourself! You're having a beautiful time feelinginjured. I admit all you say. Certainly. You've given me money bothfreely and amiably. Quite as if I were your mistress!""Carrie!""I mean it! What was a magnificent spectacle of generosity to you washumiliation to me. You GAVE me money--gave it to your mistress, if shewas complaisant, and then you----""Carrie!""(Don't interrupt me!)--then you felt you'd discharged all obligation.Well, hereafter I'll refuse your money, as a gift. Either I'm yourpartner, in charge of the household department of our business, with aregular budget for it, or else I'm nothing. If I'm to be a mistress,I shall choose my lovers. Oh, I hate it--I hate it--this smirking andhoping for money--and then not even spending it on jewels as a mistresshas a right to, but spending it on double-boilers and socks for you!Yes indeed! You're generous! You give me a dollar, right out--the onlyproviso is that I must spend it on a tie for you! And you give it whenand as you wish. How can I be anything but uneconomical?""Oh well, of course, looking at it that way----""I can't shop around, can't buy in large quantities, have to stick tostores where I have a charge account, good deal of the time, can't planbecause I don't know how much money I can depend on. That's what I payfor your charming sentimentalities about giving so generously. You makeme----""Wait! Wait! You know you're exaggerating. You never thought about thatmistress stuff till just this minute! Matter of fact, you never have'smirked and hoped for money.' But all the same, you may be right. Youought to run the household as a business. I'll figure out a definiteplan tomorrow, and hereafter you'll be on a regular amount orpercentage, with your own checking account.""Oh, that IS decent of you!" She turned toward him, trying to beaffectionate. But his eyes were pink and unlovely in the flare of thematch with which he lighted his dead and malodorous cigar. His headdrooped, and a ridge of flesh scattered with pale small bristles bulgedout under his chin.She sat in abeyance till he croaked:"No. 'Tisn't especially decent. It's just fair. And God knows I wantto be fair. But I expect others to be fair, too. And you're so high andmighty about people. Take Sam Clark; best soul that ever lived, honestand loyal and a damn good fellow----"("Yes, and a good shot at ducks, don't forget that!")("Well, and he is a good shot, too!) Sam drops around in the evening tosit and visit, and by golly just because he takes a dry smoke and rollshis cigar around in his mouth, and maybe spits a few times, you lookat him as if he was a hog. Oh, you didn't know I was onto you, and Icertainly hope Sam hasn't noticed it, but I never miss it.""I have felt that way. Spitting--ugh! But I'm sorry you caught mythoughts. I tried to be nice; I tried to hide them.""Maybe I catch a whole lot more than you think I do!""Yes, perhaps you do.""And d' you know why Sam doesn't light his cigar when he's here?""Why?""He's so darn afraid you'll be offended if he smokes. You scare him.Every time he speaks of the weather you jump him because he ain'ttalking about poetry or Gertie--Goethe?--or some other highbrow junk.You've got him so leery he scarcely dares to come here.""Oh, I AM sorry. (Though I'm sure it's you who are exaggerating now.")"Well now, I don't know as I am! And I can tell you one thing: if youkeep on you'll manage to drive away every friend I've got.""That would be horrible of me. You KNOW I don't mean to Will, what is itabout me that frightens Sam--if I do frighten him.""Oh, you do, all right! 'Stead of putting his legs up on another chair,and unbuttoning his vest, and telling a good story or maybe kiddingme about something, he sits on the edge of his chair and tries to makeconversation about politics, and he doesn't even cuss, and Sam's neverreal comfortable unless he can cuss a little!""In other words, he isn't comfortable unless he can behave like apeasant in a mud hut!""Now that'll be about enough of that! You want to know how you scarehim? First you deliberately fire some question at him that you know darnwell he can't answer--any fool could see you were experimenting withhim--and then you shock him by talking of mistresses or something, likeyou were doing just now----""Of course the pure Samuel never speaks of such erring ladies in hisprivate conversations!""Not when there's ladies around! You can bet your life on that!""So the impurity lies in failing to pretend that----""Now we won't go into all that--eugenics or whatever damn fad you chooseto call it. As I say, first you shock him, and then you become so darnflighty that nobody can follow you. Either you want to dance, or youbang the piano, or else you get moody as the devil and don't want totalk or anything else. If you must be temperamental, why can't you bethat way by yourself?""My dear man, there's nothing I'd like better than to be by myselfoccasionally! To have a room of my own! I suppose you expect me to sithere and dream delicately and satisfy my 'temperamentality' while youwander in from the bathroom with lather all over your face, and shout,'Seen my brown pants?'""Huh!" He did not sound impressed. He made no answer. He turned out ofbed, his feet making one solid thud on the floor. He marched from theroom, a grotesque figure in baggy union-pajamas. She heard him drawinga drink of water at the bathroom tap. She was furious at thecontemptuousness of his exit. She snuggled down in bed, and lookedaway from him as he returned. He ignored her. As he flumped into bed heyawned, and casually stated:"Well, you'll have plenty of privacy when we build a new house."When?""Oh, I'll build it all right, don't you fret! But of course I don'texpect any credit for it."Now it was she who grunted "Huh!" and ignored him, and felt independentand masterful as she shot up out of bed, turned her back on him,fished a lone and petrified chocolate out of her glove-box in thetop right-hand drawer of the bureau, gnawed at it, found that it hadcocoanut filling, said "Damn!" wished that she had not said it, so thatshe might be superior to his colloquialism, and hurled the chocolateinto the wastebasket, where it made an evil and mocking clatter amongthe debris of torn linen collars and toothpaste box. Then, in greatdignity and self-dramatization, she returned to bed.All this time he had been talking on, embroidering his assertion thathe "didn't expect any credit." She was reflecting that he was a rustic,that she hated him, that she had been insane to marry him, that she hadmarried him only because she was tired of work, that she must get herlong gloves cleaned, that she would never do anything more for him,and that she mustn't forget his hominy for breakfast. She was roused toattention by his storming:"I'm a fool to think about a new house. By the time I get it builtyou'll probably have succeeded in your plan to get me completely inDutch with every friend and every patient I've got."She sat up with a bounce. She said coldly, "Thank you very much forrevealing your real opinion of me. If that's the way you feel, if I'msuch a hindrance to you, I can't stay under this roof another minute.And I am perfectly well able to earn my own living. I will go at once,and you may get a divorce at your pleasure! What you want is a nicesweet cow of a woman who will enjoy having your dear friends talk aboutthe weather and spit on the floor!""Tut! Don't be a fool!""You will very soon find out whether I'm a fool or not! I mean it! Doyou think I'd stay here one second after I found out that I was injuringyou? At least I have enough sense of justice not to do that.""Please stop flying off at tangents, Carrie. This----""Tangents? TANGENTS! Let me tell you----""----isn't a theater-play; it's a serious effort to have us get togetheron fundamentals. We've both been cranky, and said a lot of things wedidn't mean. I wish we were a couple o' bloomin' poets and just talkedabout roses and moonshine, but we're human. All right. Let's cut outjabbing at each other. Let's admit we both do fool things. See here: YouKNOW you feel superior to folks. You're not as bad as I say, but you'renot as good as you say--not by a long shot! What's the reason you're sosuperior? Why can't you take folks as they are?"Her preparations for stalking out of the Doll's House were not yetvisible. She mused:"I think perhaps it's my childhood." She halted. When she went onher voice had an artificial sound, her words the bookish quality ofemotional meditation. "My father was the tenderest man in the world, buthe did feel superior to ordinary people. Well, he was! And the MinnesotaValley----I used to sit there on the cliffs above Mankato for hours at atime, my chin in my hand, looking way down the valley, wanting to writepoems. The shiny tilted roofs below me, and the river, and beyond it thelevel fields in the mist, and the rim of palisades across----It held mythoughts in. I LIVED, in the valley. But the prairie--all my thoughts goflying off into the big space. Do you think it might be that?""Um, well, maybe, but----Carrie, you always talk so much about gettingall you can out of life, and not letting the years slip by, and here youdeliberately go and deprive yourself of a lot of real good home pleasureby not enjoying people unless they wear frock coats and trot out----"("Morning clothes. Oh. Sorry. Didn't mean t' interrupt you.")"----to a lot of tea-parties. Take Jack Elder. You think Jack hasn't gotany ideas about anything but manufacturing and the tariff on lumber.But do you know that Jack is nutty about music? He'll put a grand-operarecord on the phonograph and sit and listen to it and close hiseyes----Or you take Lym Cass. Ever realize what a well-informed man heis?""But IS he? Gopher Prairie calls anybody 'well-informed' who's beenthrough the State Capitol and heard about Gladstone.""Now I'm telling you! Lym reads a lot--solid stuff--history. Or takeMart Mahoney, the garageman. He's got a lot of Perry prints of famouspictures in his office. Or old Bingham Playfair, that died here 'bout ayear ago--lived seven miles out. He was a captain in the Civil War,and knew General Sherman, and they say he was a miner in Nevada rightalongside of Mark Twain. You'll find these characters in all these smalltowns, and a pile of savvy in every single one of them, if you just digfor it.""I know. And I do love them. Especially people like Champ Perry. But Ican't be so very enthusiastic over the smug cits like Jack Elder.""Then I'm a smug cit, too, whatever that is.""No, you're a scientist. Oh, I will try and get the music out of Mr.Elder. Only, why can't he let it COME out, instead of being ashamed ofit, and always talking about hunting dogs? But I will try. Is it allright now?""Sure. But there's one other thing. You might give me some attention,too!""That's unjust! You have everything I am!""No, I haven't. You think you respect me--you always hand out somespiel about my being so 'useful.' But you never think of me as havingambitions, just as much as you have----""Perhaps not. I think of you as being perfectly satisfied.""Well, I'm not, not by a long shot! I don't want to be a plug generalpractitioner all my life, like Westlake, and die in harness because Ican't get out of it, and have 'em say, 'He was a good fellow, but hecouldn't save a cent.' Not that I care a whoop what they say, after I'vekicked in and can't hear 'em, but I want to put enough money away so youand I can be independent some day, and not have to work unless I feellike it, and I want to have a good house--by golly, I'll have as gooda house as anybody in THIS town!--and if we want to travel and see yourTormina or whatever it is, why we can do it, with enough money in ourjeans so we won't have to take anything off anybody, or fret about ourold age. You never worry about what might happen if we got sick anddidn't have a good fat wad salted away, do you!""I don't suppose I do.""Well then, I have to do it for you. And if you think for one momentI want to be stuck in this burg all my life, and not have a chance totravel and see the different points of interest and all that, then yousimply don't get me. I want to have a squint at the world, much's youdo. Only, I'm practical about it. First place, I'm going to make themoney--I'm investing in good safe farmlands. Do you understand why now?""Yes.""Will you try and see if you can't think of me as something more thanjust a dollar-chasing roughneck?""Oh, my dear, I haven't been just! I AM difficile. And I won't call onthe Dillons! And if Dr. Dillon is working for Westlake and McGanum, Ihate him!"