The exquisite fingers touched his own redder and coarser ones.
'Have you friends in Dunfield ?' he asked.
'Friends ?' 'Any real friend, I mean--any girl who gives you real companionship ?' 'Scarcely that.' 'How shall you spend your time when you are not deep in electrics?
What do you mean to read these holidays ?' 'Chiefly German, I think.

I have only just begun to read it.' 'And I can't read it at all.

Now and then I make a shot at the meaning of a note in a German edition of some classical author, every time fretting at my ignorance.

But there is so endlessly much to do, and a day is so short.' 'Isn't it hateful,' he broke forth, 'this enforced idleness of mine?
To think that weeks and weeks go by and I remain just where I was, when the loss of an hour used to seem to me an irreparable misfortune.

I have such an appetite for knowledge, surely the unhappiest gift a man can be endowed with it leads to nothing but frustration.