ere rarely at the pains to dissemble their
aims. He formed a manner for the reception of these advances, compounded
of joviality, cynicism, and frank brutality, which nobody, to his face
at least, resented. If women winced under his mocking rudenesses of
speech and smile, if men longed to kill him for the cold insolence of
his refusal to let them inside his guard, they sedulously kept it from
him. The consciousness that everybody was afraid of him,--that everybody
would kneel to him, and meekly take insult and ignominy from him, if
only hope remained to them of getting something out of him,--hardened
like a crust upon his mind.

It was impossible to get a sense of companionship from people who
cringed to him, and swallowed his affronts and cackled at his jokes
with equal docility. Sometimes he had a passing amusement in the rough
pleasantries and cruelties which they drew from him. There were two or
three bright Jewish women, more gayly clever and impudent, perhaps, than
beautiful, with whom he found it genuine fun to talk, and concerning
whom he was perpetually conceiving projects which could not have been
discussed with their husbands, and as perpetually doing nothing to
test their feasibility. But these diversions were in their essence
unsubstantial. There was not even the semblance of a real friendship
among them,--and loneliness became an increasing burden.

His sister at the old book-shop exasperated him nowadays to a degree
which often provoked within him the resolution to have done with her.
He had a score of projects for her betterment, each capable of as many
variations and eager adaptations to suit her fancy, but to them all and
sundry she opposed a barrier of stupidly passive negation. There was
nothing she wanted done for her. She would not exchange the work she had
been brought up in for a life of idleness. She did not want, and would
not know what to do with, a bigger shop than she had. An augmentation of
her capital would be of no use, because there was no room in the crowded
little shop for a larger stock than it contained. She was entirely
satisfied with the dingy home overhead, and declined to think even of
moving elsewhere. Over and over again she met his propositions with a
saying which he could recall having particularly hated on their father's
lips,--"It's ill teaching an old dog new tricks."

"You ought to have them taught you with a stick," he had told her
roundly, on the last occasion.

She