It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends. Martin’s imaginative dismay at being caught here by Watters was not lessened when Leora and he reluctantly appeared on Sunday at one-thirty and were by a fury of Old Friendship dragged back into the days of Digamma Pi.
Watters’s house was new, and furnished in a highly built-in and leaded-glass manner. He had in three years of practise already become didactic and incredibly married; he had put on weight and infallibility; and he had learned many new things about which to be dull. Having been graduated a year earlier than Martin and having married an almost rich wife, he was kind and hospitable with an emphasis which aroused a desire to do homicide. His conversation was a series of maxims and admonitions:
“If you stay with the Department of Public Health for a couple of years and take care to meet the right people, you’ll be able to go into very lucrative practise here. It’s a fine town—prosperous—so few dead beats.
“You want to join the country club and take up golf. Best opportunity in the world to meet the substantial citizens. I’ve picked up more than one high-class patient there.
“Pickerbaugh is a good active man and a fine booster but he’s got a bad socialistic tendency. These clinics—outrageous—the people that go to them that can afford to pay! Pauperize people. Now this may startle you—oh, you had a lot of crank notions when you were in school, but you aren’t the only one that does some thinking for himself!—sometimes I believe it’d be better for the general health situation if there weren’t any public health departments at all, because they get a lot of people into the habit of going to free clinics instead of to private physicians, and cut down the earnings of the doctors and reduce their number, so there are less of us to keep a watchful eye on sickness.
“I guess by this time you’ve gotten over the funny ideas you used to have about being practical—‘commercialism’ you used to call it. You can see now that you’ve got to support your wife and family, and if you don’t, nobody else is going to.
“Any time you want a straight tip about people here, you just come to me. Pickerbaugh is a crank—he won’t give you the right dope—the people you want to tie up with are the good, solid, conservative, successful business men.”
Then Mrs. Watters had her turn. She was meaty with advice, being the daughter of a prosperous person, none other than Mr. S. A. Peaseley, the manufacturer of the Daisy Manure Spreader.
“You haven’t any children?” she sobbed at Leora. “Oh, you must! Irving and I have two, and you don’t know what an interest they are to us, and they keep us so young.”
Martin and Leora looked at each other pitifully.