Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

Through both the economico-literary and the Rolls-Royce section of Joyce's set the rumor panted that there was a new diversion in an exhausted world-going out to Martin's laboratory and watching him work, and being ever so silent and reverent, except perhaps when Joyce murmured, "Isn't he adorable the way he teaches his darling bacteria to say ‘Pretty Polly'!" or when Latham Ireland convulsed them by arguing that scientists had no sense of humor, or Sammy de Lembre burst out in his marvelous burlesque of jazz:

Oh, Mistah Back-sil-lil-us, don't you gri-in at me;