Only did he know hurt, such as any child knows under the blow of a thoughtless or unloving mother.
In the hurt was mingled a resentment.

He was keenly aware that there were two sorts of roughness.

There was the kindly roughness of love, such as when Skipper gripped him by the jowl, shook him till his teeth rattled, and thrust him away with an unmistakable invitation to come back and be so shaken again.

Such roughness, to Jerry, was heaven.

In it was the intimacy of contact with a beloved god who in such manner elected to express a reciprocal love.
But this roughness of Borckman was different.