“I see nothing the staff collectively can contribute which Ethridge and Dr. MacArthur have not already covered. Mysteries in medicine are more frequent than recoveries and Ethridge has my profound respect for acknowledging himself up against one. When one has toyed with homo sapiens as long as Bear and I have, one realizes that they are so damn full of mystery ... after all, people will die!”
“After the most beautiful operations!” Bear exploded.
“And the ugliest babies,” Prissy Paton’s life-long impulse to fawn had tricked him again.
With his remark, the opposition collapsed.
The most respected and the weakest member of the staff had declared themselves. There was nothing more to be said.
With several passing pats upon Ethridge’s shoulders the meeting broke up.
Bear Sterling lowered his iceberg brows at the utterly self-righteous bows with which Hoffbein and Princeton Peters retired and growled:
“Come on out to dinner, Mac, and I’ll tell you about the golf I shot yesterday.”
Flannel-feet Hoffbein drew his half-expended smile back into his facial muscles and slithered out of the Administration Building and to the right down the long corridor.
Princeton Peters pulled on his gray gloves and sailed into the main lobby, past the statue of Elijah Wilson, founder, through the front door of the Administration Building and into his waiting Packard. As the car slid down Wilson Boulevard he turned his stately head and gave the Administration Building a regretful stare. The architects had been at variance about the period and the structure screamed their different tastes. The four corner turrets were the desire of Elijah Wilson’s engineering-brother. The cupola was the addition of a New York consultant; and Princeton’s educated-man’s knowledge of the arts was always upset by the bastard byzantine building. If he had been on hand forty years ago....