Sinclair Lewis: Main Street

14. CHAPTER XIV (continued)

"Was he limping? If the poor fish would have his teeth X-rayed, I'll bet nine and a half cents he'd find an abscess there. `Rheumatism' he calls it. Rheumatism, hell! He's behind the times. Wonder he doesn't bleed himself I Wellllllll ----" A profound and serious yawn. "I hate to break up the party, but it's getting late, and a doctor never knows when he'll get routed out before morning." (She remembered that he had given this explanation, in these words, not less than thirty times in the year.) "I guess we better be trotting up to bed. I've wound the clock and looked at the furnace. Did you lock the front door when you came in?"

They trailed up-stairs, after he had turned out the lights and twice tested the front door to make sure it was fast. While they talked they were preparing for bed. Carol still sought to maintain privacy by undressing behind the screen of the closet door. Kennicott was not so reticent. Tonight, as every night, she was irritated by having to push the old plush chair out of the way before she could open the closet door. Every time she opened the door she shoved the chair. Ten times an hour. But Kennicott liked to have the chair in the room, and there was no place for it except in front of the closet.

She pushed it, felt angry, hid her anger. Kennicott was yawning, more portentously. The room smelled stale. She shrugged and became chatty:

"You were speaking of Dr. Westlake. Tell me--you've never summed him up: Is he really a good doctor?"

"Oh yes, he's a wise old coot."

("There! You see there is no medical rivalry. Not in my house!" she said triumphantly to Guy Pollock.)

She hung her silk petticoat on a closet hook, and went on, "Dr. Westlake is so gentle and scholarly----"