flowers for Algernon

chapter 20: progress report 16 April 27

April 27

I got up the nerve today to ask Miss Kinnian to have dinner with
me tomorrow night to celebrate my bonus.
At first she wasn't sure it was right, but I asked Dr. Strauss and he said
it was okay. Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur don't seem to be getting along so well.
They're arguing all the time. This evening when I came in to ask Dr. Strauss
about having dinner with Miss Kinnian, I heard them shouting. Dr. Nemur
was saying that it was his experiment and his research, and Dr. Strauss was
shouting back that he contributed just as much, because he found me through
Miss Kinnian and he performed the operation. Dr. Strauss said that some-
day thousands of neurosurgeons might be using his technique all over the
world.
Dr. Nemur wanted to publish the results of the experiment at the end of
this month. Dr. Strauss wanted to wait a while longer to be sure. Dr. Strauss
said that Dr. Nemur was more interested in the Chair of Psychology at Prince-
ton than he was in the experiment. Dr. Nemur said that Dr. Strauss was
nothing but an opportunist who was trying to ride to glory on his coattails.
When I left afterwards, I found myself trembling. I don't know why for
sure, but it was as if I'd seen both men clearly for the first time. I remember
hearing Burt say that Dr. Nemur had a shrew of a wife who was pushing him
all the time to get things published so that he could become famous. Burt said
that the dream of her life was to have a big-shot husband.
Was Dr. Strauss really trying to ride on his coattails?