Read "The Sport of the Gods" by Paul Laurence Dunbar online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
What Joe Hamilton lacked more than anything else in the world was someone to kick him. Many a man who might have lived decently and become a fairly respectable citizen has gone to the dogs for the want of someone to administer a good resounding kick at the right time. It is corrective and clarifying.
Joe needed especially its clarifying property, for though he knew himself a cur, he went away from his mother's house feeling himself somehow aggrieved, and the feeling grew upon him the more he thought of it. His mother had ruined his chance in life, and he could never hold up his head again. Yes, he had heard that several of the fellows at the club had shady reputations, but surely to be the son of a thief or a supposed thief was not like being the criminal himself.