Page:Martin Faber - the story of a criminal (IA martinfaber00simmrich).pdf/21

{{rh|MARTIN FABER.|11} or injustice. Nor did I discriminate between those to whom this conduct was exhibited. To all alike, I carried the same countenance. To the servant, the schoolmaster, the citizen, and even to my parents, I was rude and insolent. My defiance was ready for them all, and when, as sometimes, even at the most early stages of childhood, I passed beyond those bounds of toleration, assigned to my conduct, tacitly, as it were, by my father and mother, my only rebuke was in some such miserably unmeaning language as this—'Now, my dear—now Martin—how can you be so bad'—or, 'I will be vexed with you, Martin, if you go on so.'

What was such a rebuke to an overgrown boy, to whom continued and most unvarying deference, on all hands, had given the most extravagant idea to his own importance. I