To him the days were as precious mines, and every minute a nugget.

It mattered nothing to him who won the cricket-match this year, who occupied the rooms next his, how many bumps the Saint George's boat made on the river; far more important was the thought that perhaps the oil in his lamp would run short before the night was out, or whether the edition of Plato his friend the Muggerbridge clergyman had given him was the best, and contained the fullest notes.

In short, George Reader was in earnest.
But, like the tea, the "good quiet time" he hoped for was not so easy to secure.

Scarcely had he settled down when the voices of two men in loud conversation rose, immediately under his window.

Now, when one is in the agony of trying to understand how it comes that a certain number of angles in one figure are equal to a certain number of angles in another, it is, to say the least of it, confusing to have to listen to a spirited account of a boxing-match between Jack Straight and the Hon.