No one would have said, and Doctor Prescott himself would not have believed, that he, in his superior estate of age and life, would have stooped to dislike a child like that, thus putting him upon a certain equality of antagonism; but in truth he did.
Doctor Prescott scarcely ever knew one boy from another when he met him upon the street, but Jerome Edwards he never mistook, though he never stirred his stately head in response to the boy's humble bob of courtesy.

Once, after so meeting and passing the boy, he heard an audacious note of defiance at his back, with a preliminary sniff of scorn: "Hm! wonder if he thinks he was born grown up, with money in his pockets; wonder if he thinks he owns this whole town ?" The doctor never turned to resent this sarcastic soliloquy whereby the boy's suppressed democracy asserted itself, but the next time he saw Jerome's father he told him he had better look to his son's manners, and Jerome had been called to account.
However, when he had repeated his speech which had given offence, he had only been charged to keep his thoughts to himself in future.
"I'll think 'em, anyhow," said Jerome, with unabated defiance.
"You'll pay proper respect to your elders," said his father.
"You'll think what we tell you to," said his mother, but the eyes of the two met.

Doctor Prescott might hold the mortgage and exact his pound of flesh, these poor backs might bend to the yoke, but there was no cringing in the hearts of Abel Edwards and his wife.

It was easy to see where Jerome got his spirit.
However, spirit needs long experience and great strength to assert itself fully at all times before long-recognized power.

Jerome, going up the road to Doctor Prescott's, felt rather a fierce submission and obligatory humility than defiance.