A few steps further on I heard them both burst out laughing.

I caught the words, from Oscar, "fool Rube" and "the old man'll make him look--" I heard no more, but as I turned into the grove I saw them both looking after me with broad grins on their faces.
Somebody has said that there is nothing harder to bear than the contempt and ridicule of servants.

For one thing, you cannot resent it without a loss of dignity, and, for another, you may be perfectly sure that theirs is but the reflection of their employers' frame of mind.

This encounter shook my self-satisfaction more than a little.

It angered me, but it did more than that; it brought back the feeling I had when I left the Colton library, that my defiance was not, after all, taken seriously.