The reference of his problem to Harry ought to have disposed of it for good, and left Andy free to perform his devotions with a single mind. But it only set him wondering what Harry would decide, wondering hard and--there was no escaping from it--jealously. His service in the ranks, his residence in communities at least professedly democratic, had not made him a thorough democrat, it seemed. He might have acquired the side of democracy the easier of the two to acquire; he might be ready to call any man his equal, whatever his station or his work. He stumbled at the harder task of seeing himself, whatever his work or station, as any man's equal--at claiming or assuming, not at according, equality. And in Meriton! To claim or assume equality with any and every man in Meriton would, if he accepted Jack Rock's offer, be to court ridicule from equals and unequals all alike, and most of all from his admitted inferiors. Surely Harry would never send him to the butcher's shop? That would mean that Harry thought of him (for all his kindness) as of Chinks or of the Bird. Could he risk discovering that, after all, Harry--and Harry's friends--thought of him like that? A sore pang struck him. Had he been at Nutley--at Halton--only on sufferance? He had an idea that Harry would send him to the butcher's shop--would do the thing ever so kindly, ever so considerately, but all the same would do it. "Well, it's the safe thing, isn't it, old chap?" he fancied Harry saying; and then returning to his own high ambitions, and being thereafter very friendly--whenever he chanced to pass the shop. Andy never deceived himself as to the quality of Harry's friendship: it lay, at the most, in appreciative acceptance of unbounded affection. It was not like Jonathan's for David. Andy was content. And must not acceptance, after all, breed some return? For whatever return came he was grateful. In this sphere there was no room even for theories of equality, let alone for its practice. For some little time back Andy had been surprised to observe a certain attribute of his own--that of pretty often turning out right. He accounted for it by saying that an average man, judging of average men and things, would fairly often be right--on an average; men would do what he expected, things would go as he expected--on an average. Such discernment as was implied in this Andy felt as no endowment, no clairvoyance; rather it was that his limitations qualified him to appreciate other people's. He would have liked to feel able to except Harry Belfield who should have no limitations--only he felt terribly sure of what Harry Belfield would say: Safety, and the shop! By this time the church service was ended, the cold beef eaten, most of the long walk achieved. For while these things went straight on to an end, Andy's thoughts rolled round and round, like a squirrel in a cage.