"For which," he snarled out, "every cheap skate of a university professor who never did anything himself but paddle other men's canoes, for which every human phonograph and intellectual parrot sends out thanks from his two-by-four soul! But among men who are men, among physicians who have cause to know his worth, among scientists big enough to get out of their own shadows, and, thank God, among the people who haven't been fossilised by clammy universities out of all sense of human values—among them, I say, Karl Hubers is appreciated for what he was close to doing when this damnable fate stepped in and stopped him!"
The man of broad culture, very white as to the face, rose to his fullest height. It should not be held against him that his fullest height failed in reaching the other man's shoulder. "If there is nothing further," he choked out, "perhaps we may consider the interview concluded?"
"No," retorted Parkman serenely, "the interview has just begun. It's your business, isn't it, to listen to matters relating to this department?"
"It is; but as I am accustomed to meeting men of some—"
"Manners?" supplied the doctor pleasantly. "As I am accustomed to men of a somewhat different type,"—he picked the phrase punctiliously, manifestly a conservative, even in war—"I was naturally unprepared for the nature of your remarks."
"Oh well, the unexpected must be rather agreeable when one leads so cut and dried a life. But what I want to see you about," he went on, quite as though he had dropped the most pleasant thing in the world, "is just this. I want you to give the use of Dr. Hubers' laboratory, his equipment and at least one of his assistants, to Dr. Hubers' wife, that she may get in shape to work with him as his assistant, and enable him to carry on his work and do those things, which, as you correctly state, are still unachieved."
Now the delivering of that pleased Dr. Parkman very much. He scarcely attempted to conceal his righteous pride.
"Really, now," gasped the head of the department, after a minute of speechless staring, "really, now, Dr. Parkman, you astonish me."—"That's the truth, if he ever spoke it," thought the doctor grimly."—Dr. Hubers' wife, I understand you to say?"—and he of erudition was equal to a covert sneer—"just what has she to do with it, please?"
"She has everything to do with it. In the first place, she is rather interested in Dr. Hubers. Then she's a remarkable woman. Needs to freshen up on some things, needs quite a little coaching, in fact; but in my judgment the best way for Hubers to go on with his work—you didn't think for a moment he was out of it, did you?—is for his wife to get in shape to work with him. That can be arranged all right?" he concluded pleasantly.
Then Dr. George Lane spoke with the authority in him vested. "It certainly can not," he said, with an icy decisiveness.