"
"Wherein you made a mistake. He has no right, but by courtesy, to
any equality. A little taste, perhaps, and money enough to gratify
it,--that's all. He never had an idea in his life."
"That is the reason I felt the slight. He was walking with a lady whose
manner and dress were unmistakable,--a lady of undoubted position. I
bowed, and received in return one of those hardly-perceptible nods, with
a forced smile that covered only the side of his face _from_ the lady.
It was a recognition that one might throw to his boot-black. I am a
mild-mannered man, as you know; but I could have murdered him on the
spot."
Greenleaf walked the floor with flashing eyes and his teeth set.
"Now, I like the spirit," said Easelmann; "but, pray, be sensible.
'Where Macdonald sits, there is the head of the table.' Stand firm in
your own shoes, and graduate your bows by those you get."
"I suppose I am thin-skinned."
"As long as you are, you will chafe. Cultivate a hide like a
rhinoceros's, and Society will let fly its pin-pointed arrows in vain.
You have a great deal to learn, my dear boy."
"But other special classes are not so treated,--literary men, for
instance.
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