He smiled disagreeably.
“One of the clerks, eh? One of the smart young men who nibble pens in the office?”
“Ay, but ma smartness isn’t outside, Mr. Biron.”
“I see. Great genius—disdains mere appearance and all that.”
Bram said nothing. Theodore’s sneers hurt him more than any he had ever been subjected to before. He felt, in spite of his contempt for the airy-mannered scoundrel, that he himself stood at a disadvantage, with his rough speech and awkward movements, with the dapper little man in front of him. The consciousness that he himself would be reckoned of no account compared to Theodore Biron by the very men who despised the latter and respected himself was the strongest spur he had ever felt towards self-improvement.
“And what brings a person of your intellectual calibre into our humble neighborhood?” pursued Theodore in the same tone.
“Ah’m looking for lodgings up this way,” answered Bram shortly.
The idea had come to him that evening that, since he had been told to change his lodgings, he would settle in the neighborhood of Hessel.
As he had expected, Mr. Biron did not look pleased.