The man's heart is callous.

A thing of iron, he has endured; and he has no patience nor sympathy with these creatures who lack his own excessive iron.
I noticed the stone-deaf man, the twisted oaf whose face I have described as being that of an ill-treated and feeble-minded faun.

His bright, liquid, pain-filled eyes were more filled with pain than ever, his face still more lean and drawn with suffering.

And yet his face showed an excess of nervousness, sensitiveness, and a pathetic eagerness to please and do.

I could not help observing that, despite his dreadful sense-handicap and his wrecked, frail body, he did the most work, was always the last of the group to spring to the life-line and always the first to loose the life-line and slosh knee-deep or waist-deep through the churning water to attack the immense and depressing tangle of rope and tackle.
I remarked to Mr.Pike that the men seemed thinner and weaker than when they came on board, and he delayed replying for a moment while he stared down at them with that cattle-buyer's eye of his.
"Sure they are," he said disgustedly.