If a
stranger asks us for money on any pretext, our instinct is to say "No." We don't like
to part with our money. But we sometimes tell ourselves that we are being too selfish, too
negative, too cynical, too stingy, too suspicious. In "," the viewpoint character
Norman Gortsby is feeling unsympathetic towards the unfortunate people he sees wandering about
in the twilight.
He had failed in a more subtle ambition,
and for the moment he was heartsore and disilllusioned, and not disiinclined to take a certain
cynical pleasure in observing and labelling his fellow wanderers as they went their ways in the
dark stretches between the lamp-lights.
When the young
man plops down beside him on the park bench, Gortsby is probably anticipating a hard-luck story,
and no doubt he takes "a certain cynical pleasure" in listening. The fact that he
obviously has spent many evenings observing people and "labelling his fellow
wanderers" strongly suggests that he has heard so many hard-luck stories that...
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