Sinclair Lewis: Main Street

16. CHAPTER XVI (continued)

This month of romance she was eager to understand his hobbies. She shivered in the garage while he spent half an hour in deciding whether to put alcohol or patent non-freezing liquid into the radiator, or to drain out the water entirely. "Or no, then I wouldn't want to take her out if it turned warm-- still, of course, I could fill the radiator again--wouldn't take so awful long--just take a few pails of water--still, if it turned cold on me again before I drained it---- Course there's some people that put in kerosene, but they say it rots the hose-connections and---- Where did I put that lug-wrench?"

It was at this point that she gave up being a motorist and retired to the house.

In their new intimacy he was more communicative about his practise; he informed her, with the invariable warning not to tell, that Mrs. Sunderquist had another baby coming, that the "hired girl at Howland's was in trouble." But when she asked technical questions he did not know how to answer; when she inquired, "Exactly what is the method of taking out the tonsils?" he yawned, "Tonsilectomy? Why you just---- If there's pus, you operate. Just take 'em out. Seen the newspaper? What the devil did Bea do with it?"

She did not try again.