Oh, Mistah Back-sil-lil-us, don't you gri-in at me;
You mi-cro-bi-o-log-ic cuss, I'm o-on-to thee.
When Mr. Dr. Arrowsmith's done looked at de clues,
You'll sit in jail a-singin' dem Bac-ter-i-uh Blues.
Joyce's cousin from Georgia sparkled, "Mart is so cute with all those lil vases of his. But Ah can always get him so mad by tellin' him the trouble with him is, he don't go to church often enough!"
While Martin sought to concentrate.
They flocked from the house to his laboratory only once a week, which was certainly not enough to disturb a resolute man—merely enough to keep him constantly waiting for them.
When he sedately tried to explain this and that to Joyce, she said, "Did we bother you this evening? But they do admire you so."
He remarked, "Well," and went to bed.
R. A. Hopburn, the eminent patent-lawyer, as he drove away from the Arrowsmith-Lanyon mansion grunted at his wife:
"I don't mind a host throwing the port at you, if he thinks you're a chump, but I do mind his being bored at your daring to express any opinion whatever. . . . Didn't he look silly, out in his idiotic laboratory! . . . How the deuce do you suppose Joyce ever came to marry him?"
"I can't imagine."
"I can only think of one reason. Of course she may—"
"Now please don't be filthy!"
"Well, anyway— She who might have picked any number of well-bred, agreeable, intelligent chaps—and I mean intelligent, because this Arrowsmith person may know all about germs, but he doesn't know a symphony from a savory. . . . I don't think I'm too fussy, but I don't quite see why we should go to a house where the host apparently enjoys flatly contradicting you. . . . Poor devil, I'm really sorry for him; probably he doesn't even know when he's being rude."
"No. Perhaps. What hurts is to think of old Roger—so gay, so strong, real Skull and Bones—and to have this abrupt Outsider from the tall grass sitting in his chair, failing to appreciate his Pol Roger— What Joyce ever saw in him!
