“The interruptions,” said Queed, “are constant.”

The old professor laughed.  “Upon my word, I don’t blame you for saying that.  The gross communism of a boarding-house ... it does gall one at times!  So far as I am concerned, I relieve you of it at once.  Good-night.”

The afternoon before Nicolovius had happened to walk part of the way downtown with Mr. Queed, and had been favored with a fair amount of his stately conversation.  He shut the door now somewhat puzzled by the young man’s marked curtness; but then Nicolovius knew nothing about the turpentine.

The broken evening wore on, with progress slower than the laborer’s in Problem 71, when he decided to build two rods less a day.  At eleven, Miss Miller, who had been to the theatre, breezed in; she wanted a drink of water.  At 11.45—­Queed’s open watch kept accurate tally—­there came Trainer Klinker, who, having sought his pupil vainly in the Scriptorium, retraced his steps to rout him out below.  At sight of the tall bottle in Klinker’s hand Queed shrank, fearing that Fifi had sent him with a second dose of turpentine.  But the bottle turned out to contain merely a rare unguent just obtained by Klinker from his friend Smithy, the physical instructor at the Y.M.C.A., and deemed surprisingly effective for the development of the academic bicep.

At last there was blessed quiet, and he could write again.  The city slept; the last boarder was abed; the turpentine had become a peace out of pain; only the ticking of the clock filtered into the perfect calm of the dining-room.  The little Doctor of Mrs. Paynter’s stood face to face with his love, embraced his heart’s desire.  He looked into the heart of Science and she gave freely to her lord and master.  Sprawled there over the Turkey-red cloth, which was not unhaunted by the ghosts of dead dinners, he became chastely and divinely happy.  His mind floated away into the empyrean; he saw visions of a far more perfect Society; dreamed dreams of the ascending spiral whose law others had groped at, but he would be the first to formulate; caught and fondled the secret of the whole great Design; reduced it to a rule-of-thumb to do his bidding; bestrode the whole world like a great Colossus....

From which flight he descended with a thud to observe that it was quarter of two o’clock, and the dining-room was cold with the dying down of the Latrobe, and the excellent reading-lamp in the death-throes of going out.

He went upstairs in the dark, annoyed with himself for having overstayed his bedtime.  Long experimentation had shown him that the minimum of sleep he could get along with to advantage was six and one-half hours nightly.  This meant bed at 1.30 exactly, and he hardly varied it five minutes in a year.  To his marrow he was systematic; he was as definite as an adding-machine, as practical as a cash register.  But even now, on this exceptional night, he did not go straight to bed.  Something still remained to be accomplished:  an outrage upon his sacred Schedule.