And for some time nothing occurred to shake Jack's opinion that not improbably the new master was better than his looks.

But Sawyer was shy and reserved; he liked Jack, and was in his heart grateful to him for his respectful and friendly behaviour, and for the good example he thereby set to his companions, only, unfortunately, the junior master was no hand at expressing his appreciation of such conduct.

Unfortunately too, Jack's lessons were not his strong point, and Mr.Sawyer, for all his nervousness, was so rigorously, so scrupulously honest that he found it impossible to pass by without comment some or much of Jack's unsatisfactory work.

And Jack, though so honest himself, was human, and _boy_-human, and it was not in boy-human nature to remain perfectly unaffected by the remarks called forth by the new master's frequent fault-finding.
"'It's just that you're too civil to him by half,' his companions would say.

'He's a mean sneak, and thinks he can bully you without your resenting it.