Even if the money had been given merely to make him hold his tongue about the scandal of Bulstrode's earlier life, the fact threw an odious light on Lydgate, who had long been sneered at as making himself subservient to the banker for the sake of working himself into predominance, and discrediting the elder members of his profession.
He was not sorry to have this occasion for appearing in public before the Middlemarch tribes of Toller, Hackbutt, and the rest, who looked down on him as an adventurer, and were in a state of brutal ignorance about Dante—who sneered at his Polish blood, and were themselves of a breed very much in need of crossing.
Crow sneered openly at that.
" I sneered.
" "Lots of little boys," sneered Liza.
Hook, you remember, had sneered at the boys for thinking they needed a tree apiece, but this was ignorance, for unless your tree fitted you it was difficult to go up and down, and no two of the boys were quite the same size.
" "What appalling diction," sneered the older student.
Half the students sneered, the rest nearly fell out of their chairs laughing.
I'm killing him," he sneered.
" he sneered.
" Mi sneered.
" "Oh," he sneered, "that's it!
" sneered Soapy, adding insult to petit larceny.
" "Oh, let him alone," sneered another, and this was the most trying of all, "he is such a beautiful young man; I am sure the bird and the cage must have been kept for him.
There was a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called Dummling, and was despised, mocked, and sneered at on every occasion.
" "It must be a kind of garden plant," said another; and so they sneered and despised the plant as a thing from a garden.
