But it was very difficult.

"Poor brute, poor people!" was all he could repeat.

It did not seem forcible enough, and he came to a stop with an angry splutter: "Shame!" Stevie was no master of phrases, and perhaps for that very reason his thoughts lacked clearness and precision.

But he felt with greater completeness and some profundity.
That little word contained all his sense of indignation and horror at one sort of wretchedness having to feed upon the anguish of the other--at the poor cabman beating the poor horse in the name, as it were, of his poor kids at home.

And Stevie knew what it was to be beaten.