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But he got no further, for, taking all this as an insult meant for his uncle, Tom had darted off for the gate, which he threw open, and found himself face to face with a big, shambling, hobbledehoy sort of fellow of about eighteen or nineteen, who stepped back for a yard or two, swinging a heavy stick to and fro, while a mangy-looking cur, with one eye and a very thin tail like a greyhound's, kept close at his heels.
Jens got nimbly on his feet; he always awoke with a cry of terror, guarding his head; but Emil and Peter, who were in the hobbledehoy stage, were terribly difficult to wake. Pelle would hasten downstairs, and begin to set everything in order, filling the soaking-tub and laying a sand-heap by the window-bench for the master to spit into.
I retain the keenest sympathy and something inexplicably near to envy for my own departed youth, but I should find it difficult to maintain my case against any one who would condemn me altogether as having been a very silly, posturing, emotional hobbledehoy indeed and quite like my faded photograph.
Any other girl, and this jest might have passed capitally; but he wanted the respect of this particular woman, and he had carelessly closed the doors to her regard. She might tolerate him, that would be all. She would look upon him as a hobbledehoy. He approached the curb again in front of the house, and gazed wistfully at the lighted windows. Here was another great opportunity gone.
We had ten years' labour and struggle before us ere we could impose on people a picture the size of your hand; whereas nowadays the first hobbledehoy who can stick a figure on its legs makes all the trumpets of publicity blare. And what kind of publicity is it?
If a naturally awkward man can simulate the graces of a dancing master, if a naturally graceful man can simulate the limp of a cripple or the clumsiness of a hobbledehoy, if a comparative dwarf like Kean can assume the majesty of a monarch, then he is an actor.
He watched with malignant attentiveness the imperceptible change of tone and manner that marked the family's treatment of the Spragues. There was none of the grave ceremoniousness he resented in the Atterburys' behavior with them. Jack was a hobbledehoy son of the house, almost as much as Vincent. Kate, too, was, he felt certain, treated with a reserve not shown to Mrs. Sprague or Merry.
They were prepared for scars, disfigurements, tangible horrors, but nothing! The bandages and false hair flew across the passage into the bar, making a hobbledehoy jump to avoid them. Everyone tumbled on everyone else down the steps.
Those in the other category might possibly keep aloof. For my part I feared her patronage. I remember when I was about seventeen a self-conscious hobbledehoy Mr. Ellice took me to one of her large receptions. She received her guests from a sort of elevated dais. When I came up very shy to make my salute, she asked me how old I was. 'Seventeen, was the answer.
We take the young hobbledehoy farm-hand or mechanic, ignorant, mannerless, uncleanly as he may be, and turn him out at the end of three years with his regiment, self-respecting and well-mannered, with habits of cleanliness and obedience, having acquired a bearing, and a love of order that will cling to and serve him all his life.
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