Poor duty is done by
the simple sense of moral worth, to supplant that absence of feature in
the plain flat back. We are below the animals in this. How charged with
language behind him is a dog! Everybody has noticed it. Let a dog turn
away from a hostile circle, and his crisp and wary tail not merely
defends him, it menaces; it is a weapon. Man has no choice but to surge
and boil, or stiffen preposterously. Knowing the popular sentiment about
his marketing--for men can see behind their backs, though they may have
nothing to speak with--Tinman resembled those persons of principle who
decline to pay for a "Bless your honour!" from a voluble beggar-woman,
and obtain the reverse of it after they have gone by. He was sufficiently
sensitive to feel that his back was chalked as on a slate. The only
remark following him was, "There he goes!"
He went to the seaward gate of the house on the beach, made practicable
in a low flint wall, where he was met by his sister Martha, to whom he
handed the basket. Apparently he named the cost of his purchase per
dozen.
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