hard master

“They work hard, master the language and are well adopted into the society,” said Satoshi Miyazaki, a linguist at Waseda University and author of “Why Do Foreign Sumo Wrestlers Speak Fluent Japanese?”

The fugitives who arrived in New York told stories replete with accounts of frequent whippings and other brutality; their words of complaint included “great violence,” “badly treated,” “ruff times,” “hard master,” “very severe,” “a very cruel man,” and “much fault to find with their treatment.”

Despite his appearance, he seemed a good sailor, though a hard master to his crew.

After a little silence, “Sometimes,” he added, “I rather regret the science. Happiness is a hard master—particularly other people’s happiness. A much harder master, if one isn’t conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth.”

In past years Mr. Jones, although a hard master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had fallen on evil days.