Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/144

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134
ARROWSMITH

an ex-New York Giant for baseball coach! We thought maybe we might work you in on the bacteriology or the physiology—I guess you could manage to teach that, too, if you boned up on it. But we've been making some inquiries. From some good friends of ours, down Winnemac way. And we find that you're not to be trusted with a position of real responsibility. Why, they fired you for general incompetence! But now that you've had your lesson— Do you think you'd be competent to teach Practical Hygiene in Edtooth University?"

Gottlieb was so angry that he forgot to speak English, and as all his cursing was in student German, in a creaky dry voice, the whole scene was very funny indeed to the cackling bookkeeper and the girl stenographers. When he went from that place Max Gottlieb walked slowly, without purpose, and in his eyes were senile tears.