ture I
got outside the protection of my wall, would kick me back with a coarse
injunction to keep out of the way. No one was sorry for me; not a look of
compassion, not a word of inquiry was wasted upon me; no representative
of authority appeared. I saw a dozen quarrels while I lay there, cries of
the weak, and triumphant shouts of the strong; but that was all.

I was drawn after a while from the fierce and burning sense of my own
grievances by a querulous voice quite close to me. 'This is my corner,'
it said. 'I've sat here for years, and I have a right to it. And here you
come, you big ruffian, because you know I haven't got the strength to
push you away.'

'Who are you?' I said, turning round horror-stricken; for close beside me
was a miserable man, apparently in the last stage of disease. He was pale
as death, yet eaten up with sores. His body was agitated by a nervous
trembling. He seemed to shuffle along on hands and feet, as though the
ordinary mode of locomotion was impossible to him, and yet was in
possession of all his limbs. Pain was written in his face. I drew away to
leave him room, with mingled pity and horror that this poor wretch should
be the partner of the only shelter I could find within so short a time of
my arrival. I who--It was horrible, shameful, humiliating; and yet the
suffering in his wretched face was so evident that I could not but feel a
pang of pity too. 'I have nowhere to go,' I said. 'I am--a stranger. I
have been badly used, and nobody seems to care.'

'No,' he said, 'nobody cares; don't you look for that. Why should they?
Why, you look as if you were sorry for _me!_ What a joke!' he murmured
to himself,--'what a joke! Sorry for some one else! What a fool the
fellow must be!'

'You look,' I said, 'as if you were suffering horribly; and you say you
have come here for years.'

'Suffering! I should think I was,' said the sick man; 'but what is that
to you? Yes; I've been here for years,--oh, years! that means
nothing,--for longer than can be counted. Suffering is not the word. It's
torture; it's agony! But who cares? Take your leg out of my way.'

I drew myself out of his way from a sort of habit, though against my
will, and asked, from habit too, 'Are you never any better than now?'

He looked at me more closely, and an air of astonishment came over his
face. 'What d'ye want here,' he said, 'pitying a man? That's something
new here. No; I'm not always so bad, if you want to know. I