Life & Wisdom Quote by Richard H. Davis

A little sentence of social panic, dressed up as offhand reportage. Davis lets the speaker tumble into confession: the hat, cane, the walk - the whole curated surface of “being someone” - has turned him into a punchline. The interesting move is that the ridicule isn’t described as cruelty so much as atmosphere, a consensus. “The fellows looked on me” frames mockery as a collective gaze, a tribunal of ordinary men. Style here is not self-expression; it’s an accusation.

The phrase “special object of ridicule” is doing quiet work. It’s not just that he’s teased; it’s that he’s singled out, displayed. Davis is attentive to how masculinity polices itself through small humiliations: the wrong accessories, the wrong posture, the wrong ease. Hat and cane are props of aspirational gentility, urbanity, maybe even theatricality. In a peer setting that values sameness and rugged credibility, those signals read as affectation, a bid for status without the right credentials.

Then comes the kicker: “though I thought I’d got over that by this time.” It’s a self-rebuke, the belief that ridicule has an expiration date, that you can outgrow being a target by sheer time served. Davis undercuts that comforting narrative. Class and taste aren’t phases you “get over”; they’re codes other people keep decoding. The line captures a very modern insecurity: the fear that the self you’ve carefully edited is still visible as an error, and the room is reading it aloud.