Two copies of Colenso's Arithmetic had been procured; one was given to me, and the other, as I afterwards learned, to Mr.Ramsey.The fly-leaf was cut out, I noticed; the object being to prevent us from obtaining a bit of paper to write on.

This, I may add, is the general rule in the prison library, every book being thus mutilated.

It is a silly precaution, for if a prisoner can succeed in carrying on a correspondence with his friends outside, he is obviously not dependent on the library for materials, and he would be the veriest fool to excite suspicion by amputating the leaves of a book.
Knowing that I should have no better school-book during my long imprisonment, I determined to make Colenso last as long as possible.

I steadily went through it from beginning to end.

Working the addition and subtraction sums was certainly tedious, but I wanted to keep the interesting problems, as you reserve the daintier portions of a repast, till the end.