At Creed & Creed's I received a similar tempered welcome.
"Sure here's Brogan," Bridget called out to the other men, on seeing me enter the cavern where four of them were at the accustomed work of sweeping a consignment that had just been unpacked. Burlap and sheepskins were still strewn about the floor, so that I had to restrain the impulse to pick things up and stack them.
Perhaps I can best compare my return to that of a spirit which has passed to a higher sphere and chooses to be for a short time re-embodied. Denis, the Finn, and a small wiry man, a stranger to me, all drew near to stare solemnly. My visit could only be taken as a condescension, not as a renewed incorporation into the old life. From that I had been projected forever by the sheer fact of not having to earn a living in this humble way.
"Aw, but it's well you're lookin'," Gallivan said, awesomely.
"And why shouldn't he be lookin' well," Bridget demanded, "and him with more butter than he's got bread to spread it on?"
"It's different with us," the Finn said, bitterly, "with no butter and not enough bread, and more mouths to feed than can ever be filled. I'll bet you Brogan doesn't think of them, now that he's got his own belly full."
It seemed to me an opening.
"Well, suppose I did? Suppose I'd come back to hand down some of the butter?"
"Aw, cut it out, Brogan," the Finn laughed, joylessly. "I was only kiddin' you. We don't pass the buck, none of us don't. What you got, keep; and if you don't, then the more fool you."
In Denis's yearning eyes were the only signs of remote comprehension in the company.