Barrow whispered to Tracy:
"The old man's been waiting for that. He wouldn't have missed that
chance for anything."
"It's a brutal business," said Tracy. Then he said to himself, purposing
to set the thought down in his diary later:
"Well, here in this very house is a republic where all are free and
equal, if men are free and equal anywhere in the earth, therefore I have
arrived at the place I started to find, and I am a man among men, and on
the strictest equality possible to men, no doubt. Yet here on the
threshold I find an inequality. There are people at this table who are
looked up to for some reason or another, and here is a poor devil of a
boy who is looked down upon, treated with indifference, and shamed by
humiliations, when he has committed no crime but that common one of being
poor. Equality ought to make men noble-minded. In fact I had supposed
it did do that."
After supper, Barrow proposed a walk, and they started. Barrow had a
purpose. He wanted Tracy to get rid of that cowboy hat. He didn't see
his way to finding mechanical or manual employment for a person rigged in
that fashion. Barrow presently said:
"As I understand it, you're not a cowboy."
"No, I'm not.
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