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it makes a great difference in the way people look at him and feel about
him."
"Is that so! Is it so?"
Barrow looked at Tracy in a puzzled way. "Why of course it's so.
Wouldn't you know that, naturally. Don't you know that the wounded deer
is always attacked and killed by its companions and friends?"
Tracy said to himself, while a chilly and boding discomfort spread itself
through his system, "In a republic of deer and men where all are free and
equal, misfortune is a crime, and the prosperous gore the unfortunate to
death." Then he said aloud, "Here in the boarding house, if one would
have friends and be popular instead of having the cold shoulder turned
upon him, he must be prosperous."
"Yes," Barrow said, "that is so. It's their human nature. They do turn
against Brady, now that he's unfortunate, and they don't like him as well
as they did before; but it isn't because of any lack in Brady--he's just
as he was before, has the same nature and the same impulses, but they--
well, Brady is a thorn in their consciences, you see. They know they
ought to help him and they're too stingy to do it, and they're ashamed of
themselves for that, and they ought also to hate themselves on that
account, but instead of that they hate Brady because he makes them
ashamed of themselves. I say that's human nature; that occurs
everywhere; this boarding house is merely the world in little, it's the
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