"You don't, Charlie.
If you did then I'd tell them I don't care about their delegations and their petitions, and I'd stick up for you against all of them.
But as it is now, they're all scared to death of you.
I got to think of my own family too."
"What if they change their minds?
Let me try to convince them."
I was making it harder for him than he expected. I knew I should stop, but I couldn't control myself.
"I'll make them understand," I pleaded.
"All right," he sighed finally.
"Go ahead, try. But you're only going to hurt yourself."
As I came out of his office, Frank Reilly and Joe Carp walked by me, and I knew what he had said was true.
Having me around to look at was too much for them. I made them all uncomfortable.
Frank had just picked up a tray of rolls and both he and Joe turned when I called.
"Look, Charlie, I'm busy.
Maybe later—"
"No," I insisted. "Now—right now.
Both of you have been avoiding me.
Why?"
Frank, the fast talker, the lathes' man, the arranger, studied me for a moment and then set the tray down on the table.
"Why?
I'll tell you why.
Because all of a sudden you're a big shot, a know-it-all, a brain!
Now you're a regular whiz kid, an egghead.
Always with a book—always with all the answers.
"Well, I'll tell you something.
You think you're better than the rest of us here?
Okay, go someplace else."
"But what did I do to you?"
"What did he do?
Hear that, Joe?
I'll tell you what you did, Mister Gordon.
You come pushing in here with your ideas and suggestions and make the rest of us all look like a bunch of dopes.
But I'll tell you something.
To me you're still a moron.
Maybe I don't understand some of them big words or the names of the books, but I'm as good as you are—better even."
"Yeah." Joe nodded, turning to emphasize the point to Gimpy who had just come up behind him.
"I'm not asking you to be my friends," I said, "or have anything to do with me.
Just let me keep my job.
Mr. Donner says it's up to you."
Gimpy glared at me and then shook his head in disgust.
"You got a nerve," he shouted.
"You can go to hell!"
Then he turned and limped off heavily.
And so it went.
Most of them felt the way Joe and Frank and Gimpy did. It had been all right as long they could laugh at me and appear clever at my expense, but now they were feeling inferior to the moron.
I began to see that by my astonishing growth I had made them shrink and emphasized their inadequacies.
I had betrayed them, and they hated me for it.
Fanny Birden was the only one who didn't think I should be forced to leave, and despite their pressure and threats, she had been the only one not to sign the petition.
"Which don't mean to say," she remarked, "that I don't think there's something mighty strange about you, Charlie.
The way you've changed!