How far away is that school-boy time, when I found a pleasure in getting up and escaping from the dormitory whilst all the others were still asleep.  My purpose was innocent enough; I got up early only to do my lessons.  I can see the long school-room, lighted by the early sun; I can smell the school-room odour—­a blend of books and slates and wall-maps and I know not what.  It was a mental peculiarity of mine that at five o’clock in the morning I could apply myself with gusto to mathematics, a subject loathsome to me at any other time of the day.  Opening the book at some section which was wont to scare me, I used to say to myself:  “Come now, I’m going to tackle this this morning!  If other boys can understand it, why shouldn’t I?” And in a measure I succeeded.  In a measure only; there was always a limit at which my powers failed me, strive as I would.

In my garret-days it was seldom that I rose early:  with the exception of one year—­or the greater part of a twelvemonth—­during which I was regularly up at half-past five for a special reason.  I had undertaken to “coach” a man for the London matriculation; he was in business, and the only time he could conveniently give to his studies was before breakfast.  I, just then, had my lodgings near Hampstead Road; my pupil lived at Knightsbridge; I engaged to be with him every morning at half-past six, and the walk, at a brisk pace, took me just about an hour.  At that time I saw no severity in the arrangement, and I was delighted to earn the modest fee which enabled me to write all day long without fear of hunger; but one inconvenience attached to it.  I had no watch, and my only means of knowing the time was to hear the striking of a clock in the neighbourhood.  As a rule, I awoke just when I should have done; the clock struck five, and up I sprang.  But occasionally—­and this when the mornings had grown dark—­my punctual habit failed me; I would hear the clock chime some fraction of the hour, and could not know whether I had awoke too soon or slept too long.  The horror of unpunctuality, which has always been a craze with me, made it impossible to lie waiting; more than once I dressed and went out into the street to discover as best I could what time it was, and one such expedition, I well remember, took place between two and three o’clock on a morning of foggy rain.

It happened now and then that, on reaching the house at Knightsbridge, I was informed that Mr. —–­ felt too tired to rise.  This concerned me little, for it meant no deduction of fee; I had the two hours’ walk, and was all the better for it.  Then the appetite with which I sat down to breakfast, whether I had done my coaching or not!  Bread and butter and coffee—­such coffee!—­made the meal, and I ate like a navvy.  I was in magnificent spirits.  All the way home I had been thinking of my day’s work, and the morning brain, clarified and whipped to vigour by that brisk exercise, by that wholesome hunger, wrought its best.  The last mouthful swallowed, I was seated at my writing-table; aye, and there I sat for seven or eight hours, with a short munching interval, working as only few men worked in all London, with pleasure, zeal, hope. . . .