His very recreations became duties.

He enjoyed himself by time-table, went deer-stalking with meticulous gusto, and made puns at lunch--it was the right thing to do.

The mechanism worked with astonishing efficiency, but it never rested and it was never oiled.

In dry exactitude the innumerable cog-wheels perpetually revolved.

No, whatever happened, the Prince would not relax; he had absorbed the doctrines of Stockmar too thoroughly.