III + 

After the first daze of white tile and bustling cleverness at the Rouncefield Clinic, Martin had the desire to tie up a few loose knots of his streptolysin research. + 

When Angus Duer discovered it he hinted, “Look here, Martin, I’m glad you’re keeping on with your science, but if I were you I wouldn’t, I think, waste too much energy on mere curiosity. Dr. Rouncefield was speaking about it the other day. We’d be glad to have you do all the research you want, only we’d like it if you went at something practical. Take for instance: if you could make a tabulation of the blood-counts in a couple of hundred cases of appendicitis and publish it, that’d get somewhere, and you could sort of bring in a mention of the clinic, and we’d all receive a little credit⁠—and incidentally maybe we could raise you to three thousand a year then.” + 

This generosity had the effect of extinguishing Martin’s desire to do any research whatever. + 

“Angus is right. What he means is: as a scientist I’m finished. I am. I’ll never try to do anything original again.” + 

It was at this time, when Martin had been with the clinic for a year, that his streptolysin paper was published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. He gave reprints to Rouncefield and to Angus. They said extremely nice things which showed that they had not read the paper, and again they suggested his tabulating blood-counts. + 

He also sent a reprint to Max Gottlieb, at the McGurk Institute of Biology. + 

Gottlieb wrote to him, in that dead-black spiderweb script: + 

Dear Martin: + 

I have read your paper with great pleasure. The curves of the relation of hemolysin production to age of culture are illuminating. I have spoken about you to Tubbs. When are you coming to us⁠—to me? Your laboratory and diener are waiting for you here. The last thing I want to be is a mystic, but I feel when I see your fine engraved letterhead of a clinic and a Rouncefield that you should be tired of trying to be a good citizen and ready to come back to work. We shall be glad, & Dr. Tubbs, if you can come. + 

“I’m simply going to adore New York,” said Leora. + 