He lost patience with the spectacle. When they were feeling good, they
shouted, they scuffled, they sang songs, they romped about the place like
cattle, and they generally wound up with a pillow fight, in which they
banged each other over the head, and threw the pillows in all directions,
and every now and then he got a buffet himself; and they were always
inviting him to join in. They called him "Johnny Bull," and invited him
with excessive familiarity to take a hand. At first he had endured all
this with good nature, but latterly he had shown by his manner that it
was distinctly distasteful to him, and very soon he saw a change in the
manner of these young people toward him. They were souring on him as
they would have expressed it in their language. He had never been what
might be called popular. That was hardly the phrase for it; he had
merely been liked, but now dislike for him was growing. His case was not
helped by the fact that he was out of luck, couldn't get work, didn't
belong to a union, and couldn't gain admission to one. He got a good many
slights of that small ill-defined sort that you can't quite put your
finger on, and it was manifest that there was only one thing which
protected him from open insult, and that was his muscle.
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