"
I paid off the cab, and we took a 'bus which passed by the street where
Barber lived. All the way I continued to reproach him. It was not enough
for him to play the fool on his own account, but he must get me into a
mess, too. I might lose my work through him.
I walked with him to his door. He looked extremely ill. His hand
trembled so badly that he could not fit his latchkey. I opened the door
for him.
"Come up and sit with a fellow," he ventured.
"Why?"
"I'm frightened.--"
"I believe," I said roughly, "that you've been drinking--or drugging."
I shoved him inside the house, pulled the door closed, and walked away
down the street. I was very angry and disturbed, but I felt also the
need to treat Barber with contempt so as to keep myself alive to the
fact that he was really a mere nothing, a little scum on the surface of
London, of no more importance than a piece of paper on the pavement.
For--shall I confess it?--I was even yet so much under the emotion of
the scene back there in the concert hall that I could not help regarding
him still with some mixture of respect and--yes, absurd as it may sound,
of fear.
It was nearly a year before I saw Barber again. I heard that he had lost
his place at his office. The cashier there, who told me this, said that
although the young man was generally docile and a fair worker, he had in
the last year become very irregular, and was often quarrelsome and
impudent.
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