“Upon my return to this place I found my persecutors more active than they were before I left it. On that account I have determined to confine myself to my lodgings during the day. I take my walks before seven o’clock in the morning, and after dusk in the evening. However, I don’t entirely escape them by staying at home. Many times a day I hear people passing my window say to one another, ‘Mr Patrickson, that came to college upon a subscription, lives there.’ Sometimes this information causes a laugh; among working men commonly anger. They often cry, ‘A damn’d barber’s clerk: I wish he had to work as hard as me!’ This expression ‘barber’s clerk,’ which seems to be an indefinite term of contempt, has, I suppose, been the occasion of some persons, not versed in slang, taking up the idea that I’m the son of a barber. . . .”
