As Martin began his paper, thinking of resigning but giving it up because Tubbs seemed to him at least better than the Pickerbaughs, he had a vision of a world of little scientists, each busy in a roofless cell. Perched on a cloud, watching them, was the divine Tubbs, a glory of whiskers, ready to blast any of the little men who stopped being earnest and wasted time on speculation about anything which he had not assigned to them. Back of their welter of coops, unseen by the tutelary Tubbs, the lean giant figure of Gottlieb stood sardonic on a stormy horizon.
Literary expression was not easy to Martin. He delayed with his paper, while Tubbs became irritable and whipped him on. The experiments had ceased; there was misery and pen-scratching and much tearing of manuscript paper in Martin’s particular roofless cell.
For once he had no refuge in Leora. She cried:
“Why not? Ten thousand a year would be awfully nice, Sandy. Gee! We’ve always been so poor, and you do like nice flats and things. And to boss your own department— And you could consult Dr. Gottlieb just the same. He’s a department-head, isn’t he, and yet he keeps independent of Dr. Tubbs. Oh, I’m for it!”
And slowly, under the considerable increase in respect given to him at Institute lunches, Martin himself was “for it.”
“We could get one of those new apartments on Park Avenue. Don’t suppose they cost more than three thousand a year,” he meditated. “Wouldn’t be so bad to be able to entertain people there. Not that I’d let it interfere with my work.... Kind of nice.”
It was still more kind of nice, however agonizing in the taking, to be recognized socially.
Capitola McGurk, who hitherto had not perceived him except as an object less interesting than Gladys the Centrifuge, telephoned: “ ... Dr. Tubbs so enthusiastic and Ross and I are so pleased. Be delighted if Mrs. Arrowsmith and you could dine with us next Thursday at eight-thirty.”
Martin accepted the royal command.
It was his conviction that after glimpses of Angus Duer and Rippleton Holabird he had seen luxury, and understood smart dinner parties. Leora and he went without too much agitation to the house of Ross McGurk, in the East Seventies, near Fifth Avenue. The house did, from the street, seem to have an unusual quantity of graystone gargoyles and carven lintels and bronze grills, but it did not seem large.