When first I inquired at the Lost Article window, I was received as a man and brother. There was even an attempt to show the respect due to one who may have seen better days. I had the feeling that both myself and my lost article were receiving individual attention. I left without any sense of humiliation. But the third time I appeared I was conscious of a change in the atmosphere. A single glance at the Restorer of Lost Articles showed me that I was no longer in his eyes a citizen who was in temporary misfortune. I was classified. He recognized me as a rounder. "There he is again," he said to himself. "Last time it was at Rockingham Junction, this time it is probably on the Saugus Branch; but it is the same old story, and the same old umbrella."
What hurt my feelings was that nothing I could say would do any good. It would not help matters to explain that losing articles was not my steady occupation, and that I had other interests in life. He would only wearily note the fact as another indication of my condition. "That's the way they all talk. These defectives can never be made to see their conduct in its true light. They always explain their misfortunes by pretending that their thoughts were on higher things."
The Doctrinaire when he gets hold of a good thing never lets up on it. His favorite idea is produced on all occasions. It may be excellent in its way, but he sings its praises till we turn against it as we used to do in the Fourth Reader Class, when we all with one accord turned against "Teacher's Pet." Teacher's Pet might be dowered with all the virtues, but we of the commonality would have none of them. We chose to scoff at an excellence that insulted us.
The King in "Hamlet" remarked,
"There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,
Dies in his own too-much."