For in truth he never could bring himself, in the small matters of dealing that pass between boys at school, to make the least profit.

He had a passion for fair play, which, combined with love to his neighbour, made of an advantage, though perfectly understood and recognized, almost a physical pain: he shrank from it with something like disgust.

I may not, however, conceal my belief, that there was in it a rudimentary tinge of the pride of those of his ancestors who looked down upon commerce, though not upon oppression, or even on robbery.

But the true man will change to nobility even the instincts derived from strains of inferior moral development in his race--as the oyster makes, they say, of the sand-grain a pearl.
Greeting the tailor through his open window, where he sat cross-legged on his table, the shoemaker on his stool, which, this lovely summer morning, he had brought to the door of his cottage, and the smith in his nimbus of sparks, through the half-door of his smithy, and receiving from each a kindly response, the boy walked steadily on till he came to the school.

There, on the heels of the master, the boys and girls were already crowding in, and he entered along with them.