You're a bad lot Bernard Brooks. I don't think I ever knew a wuss boy."

"Thank you for the compliment Mr. Snowdon. Let me suggest however that wuss is hardly correct English."

He could be a devoted friend and a loyal subordinate to one who gained his good will. Mr. Snowdon he did not look upon as a friend though he had been placed in his charge two months before by a cousin of his deceased father. Ezekiel Snowdon a man of perhaps sixty tall and with stooping shoulders colored with anger at the boy's sarcastic words. He claimed to have been educated at a small Western college and on the strength of it had established himself in the country and advertised for private pupils at a low rate.

These were mostly young and not competent to see his deficiencies but Bernard was old enough and well enough educated to perceive and comment on them. This greatly annoyed Mr. Snowdon who felt that the boy did not treat him with proper respect.