I looked like a hayseed--not the independent countryman who wears old clothes on week days from choice and is proudly conscious of a Sunday suit in the closet--but that other variety, the post-office and billiard-room idler who has reached the point of utter indifference, is too shiftless to care.

Captain Jed was not so far wrong, after all--Lute Rogers and I were birds of a feather in more ways than one.
No wonder that girl in the auto had looked at me as if I were something too contemptible for notice.

Yet I hated her for that look.

I had behaved like a boor, of course.

Because I was a failure, a country loafer with no prospect of ever being anything else, because I could not ride in automobiles and others could--these were no good reasons for insulting strangers more fortunate than I.Yet I did hate that girl.
Just then I hated all creation, especially that portion of it which amounted to anything.
I took the letter from my pocket and read it again.