“Except me,” said Tracy softly.
“Except you!” Barrow could hardly get the words out, his scorn so choked him. And he couldn’t get any further than that form of words; it seemed to dam his flow, utterly. He got up and came and glared upon Tracy in a kind of outraged and unappeasable way, and said again, “Except you!” He walked around him—inspecting him from one point of view and then another, and relieving his soul now and then by exploding that formula at him; “Except you!” Finally he slumped down into his chair with the air of one who gives it up, and said:
“He’s straining his viscera and he’s breaking his heart trying to get some low-down job that a good dog wouldn’t have, and yet wants to let on that if he had a chance to scoop an earldom he wouldn’t do it. Tracy, don’t put this kind of a strain on me. Lately I’m not as strong as I was.”
“Well, I wasn’t meaning to put—a strain on you, Barrow, I was only meaning to intimate that if an earldom ever does fall in my way—”
“There—I wouldn’t give myself any worry about that, if I was you. And besides, I can settle what you would do. Are you any different from me?”
“Well—no.”
“Are you any better than me?”
“O,—er—why, certainly not.”
“Are you as good? Come!”
“Indeed, I—the fact is you take me so suddenly—”