This young man was not at all uncivil, but he was delicate, almost effeminate in frame, wore eye-glasses, dressed with fastidious neatness, never made any jokes or laughed heartily at those of others, and rarely joined the daily lounge and smoke around Tyler’s table after the paper had gone to press--and in all these things he grated upon Seth’s sensitiveness. He was the one member of the staff whom Mr. Workman seemed to like and whom Mr. Samboye never humiliated publicly by his ponderous ridicule, and these were added grievances. He worked very steadily and carefully, and was said to do a good deal of heavy reading at home, evenings, in addition to the slavish routine of high social duties in which Seth indefinitely understood him to be immersed. His chief tasks were the book reviews, the editing of correspondence, and the preparation of minor editorial paragraphs in a smaller type than Mr. Samboye’s. Seth thought that his style, though correct and neat, was thin and emasculated, and he came to associate this with his estimate of the writer, and account for it by his habits and associations--which the further confirmed him in his judgment as to the right way to live. But there was something more than this. The first few days after his return from his vacation, Dent had tried to be courteous and helpful to the newcomer from the country, in his shy, undemonstrative way, and Seth, despite his preconceived prejudice, had gone a little way on the road to friendship. Then one night, as he and Watts were returning arm-in-arm to their joint lodgings from Bismarck’s, a trifle unsteadily perhaps, they had encountered Dent walking with a young lady, and Tom had pleasantly accosted them--at least it seemed pleasantly to Seth--but Dent had not taken it in the right spirit at the time, and had been decidedly cool to Seth ever since. This was so unreasonable that the country boy resented it deeply, and the two barely spoke to each other.