On the tenth he found himself mocked, as a schoolboy believes he has grasped a butterfly and opens his fingers cautiously, to find no prisoner within them.

He could never precisely understand how it happened, and it never failed to annoy him heavily.
After bidding the Master good morning he went straight to Brother Bonaday's lodging.

Brother Bonaday, now fairly convalescent, was up and dressed and seated in his arm-chair, whiling away the morning with a newspaper.

In days of health he had been a diligent reader of dull books; had indeed (according to his friend Copas--but the story may be apocryphal) been known to sit up past midnight with an antiquated _Annual Report of the Registrar-General_, borrowed from the shelf of Brother Inchbald, whose past avocations had included the registering of Births, Deaths and Marriages somewhere in Wiltshire.
But of late, as sometimes happens in old age, books had lost their savour for him, and he preferred to let his eyes rest idly on life's passing show as reflected in the _camera obscura_ of a halfpenny paper.
He rose respectfully as the Chaplain entered.
"Be seated, please," said Mr.Colt.

Declining a chair for himself, he planted his feet astraddle on the worn hearthrug.
Standing so, with his back to the grate, his broad shoulders blocking out the lower half of a picture of the Infant Samuel above the mantel-shelf, he towered over the frail invalid, concerning whose health he asked a few perfunctory questions before plunging into business.
"You're wondering what brings me here.