I read a book the other evening whose title is “Stories of Thrift for Young Americans,” and it made me feel that I ought to apply the efficiency test to myself, and repeat the process every waking hour of the day.  But, in order to do this, I must apply the test to these three hours.  In my dreamy moods, I like to personify an Hour and spell it with a capital.  I like to think of an hour as the singular of Houri which the Mohammedans call nymphs of paradise, because they were, or are, beautiful-eyed.  My Hour then becomes a goddess walking through my life, and, as the poet says, et vera incessu patuit dea.  If I show her that I appreciate her she comes again just after the clock strikes, in form even more winsome than before, and smiles upon me as only a goddess can.  Once, in a sullen mood, I looked upon her as if she were a hag.  When she returned she was a hag; and not till after I had done full penance did she become my beautiful goddess again.

A young man who had been spending the evening in the home of a neighbor complained that they did not play any games, and did nothing but talk.  I could not ask what games he meant, fearing that I might smile in his face if he should say crokinole, tiddledy-winks, or button-button.  Later on I learned that much of the talking was done that evening by a very cultivated man who has travelled widely and intelligently, and has a most engaging manner in his fluent discussions of art, literature, archaeology, architecture, places, and peoples.  I was sorry to miss such an evening, and think I could forego tiddledywinks with a fair degree of amiability if, instead, I could hear such a man talk.  I have seen people yawn in an art gallery.  I fear to play tiddledywinks lest my hour may resume the guise of a hag.  But that makes me think of Atropos again, and the joke I am planning to play on her.  Still, I see that I shall not soon get around to that joke if I persist in these dim generalities, as a schoolmaster is so apt to do.

Well, as I was saying, these three hours are at my disposal, and I must decide what to do with them here and now.  In deciding concerning hours I must sit in the judgment-seat whether I like it or not.  Tomorrow evening I shall have other three hours to dispose of the same as these, and the next evening three others, and my decision to-night may be far-reaching.  In six days I shall have eighteen such hours, and in fifty weeks nine hundred.  I suppose that a generous estimate of a college year would be ten hours a day for one hundred and eighty days, or eighteen hundred hours in all.  I am quite aware that some college boys will feel inclined to apply a liberal discount to this estimate, but I am not considering those fellows who try to do a month’s work in the week of examination, and spend their fathers’ money for coaching.  Now, if eighteen hundred hours constitute a college year then my nine hundred hours are one-half a college year, and it makes a deal of difference what I do with these three hours.