That Dill is sensitive has already been demonstrated in earlier chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird. For, he runs away from a home in which his mother is distant. Yet, it is ironic that he becomes so upset at the prosecutor's badgering of Tom Robinson in light of his creating so much mischief against Boo Radley.
Perhaps, Boo Radley seems unreal to Dill, but as he sits in the courtroom and perceives the obvious cruelty of Mr. Gilmer to Tom Robinson, with his child's mind that sees more clearly that the jaded adult minds, Dill feels the sting of bias. An an underdog himself, he is sensitive to this cruelty of Mr. Gilmer, and is physically shaken by it. His reactions of becoming sick because as Mr. Dolphus Raymond remarks, "You aren't thin-hided, it just makes you sick," foreshadows the remark of Atticus Finch who says after the trial that only children cry about the "secret courts of men's hearts."
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