I can’t enjoy them. The moment I appeared in a hat of the period,
I noticed a change. The respect which had been paid me before, passed
suddenly away, and the people became friendly–more than that–they
became familiar, and I’m not used to familiarity, and can’t take to it
right off; I find that out. These people’s familiarity amounts to
impudence, sometimes. I suppose it’s all right; no doubt I can get used
to it, but it’s not a satisfactory process at all. I have accomplished
my dearest wish, I am a man among men, on an equal footing with Tom, Dick
and Harry, and yet it isn’t just exactly what I thought it was going to
be. I–I miss home. Am obliged to say I am homesick. Another thing–
and this is a confession–a reluctant one, but I will make it: The thing
I miss most and most severely, is the respect, the deference, with which
I was treated all my life in England, and which seems to be somehow
necessary to me. I get along very well without the luxury and the wealth
and the sort of society I’ve been accustomed to, but I do miss the
respect and can’t seem to get reconciled to the absence of it. There is
respect, there is deference here, but it doesn’t fall to my share. It is
lavished on two men. One of them is a portly man of middle age who is a
retired plumber. Everybody is pleased to have that man’s notice.
He’s full of pomp and circumstance and self complacency and bad grammar,
and at table he is Sir Oracle and when he opens his mouth not any dog in
the kennel barks. The other person is a policeman at the capitol-
building. He represents the government. The deference paid to these two
men is not so very far short of that which is paid to an earl in England,
though the method of it differs. Not so much courtliness, but the
deference is all there.
Yes, and there is obsequiousness, too.
It does rather look as if in a republic where all are free and equal,
prosperity and position constitute rank.
CHAPTER XIII.
The days drifted by, and they grew ever more dreary. For Barrow’s
efforts to find work for Tracy were unavailing. Always the first
question asked was, “What Union do you belong to?”
Tracy was obliged to reply that he didn’t belong to any trade-union.
“Very well, then, it’s impossible to employ you. My men wouldn’t stay
with me if I should employ a ‘scab,’ or ‘rat,'” or whatever the phrase
was.
Finally, Tracy had a happy thought. He said, “Why the thing for me to
do, of course, is to join a trade-union.”
“Yes,” Barrow said, “that is the thing for you to do–if you can.”
“If I can? Is it difficult?”
“Well, Yes,” Barrow said, “it’s sometimes difficult–in fact, very
difficult. But you can try, and of course it will be best to try.”
Therefore Tracy tried; but he did not succeed. He was refused admission
with a good deal of promptness, and was advised to go back home, where he
belonged, not come here taking honest men’s bread out of their mouths.
Tracy began to realize that the situation was desperate, and the thought
made him cold to the marrow. He said to himself, “So there is an
aristocracy of position here, and an aristocracy of prosperity, and
apparently there is also an aristocracy of the ins as opposed to the
outs, and I am with the outs. So the ranks grow daily, here. Plainly
there are all kinds of castes here and only one that I belong to, the
outcasts.” But he couldn’t even smile at his small joke, although he was
obliged to confess that he had a rather good opinion of it. He was
feeling so defeated and miserable by this time that he could no longer
look with philosophical complacency on the horseplay of the young fellows
in the upper rooms at night. At first it had been pleasant to see them
unbend and have a good time after having so well earned it by the labors
of the day, but now it all rasped upon his feelings and his dignity.