There was still much of the boy in Pierson's face. But Scarborough
looked the man, developed, ready.
Pierson wandered into the bedroom to complete his survey. "I see
you're going to live by the clock," he called out presently. He had
found, pasted to the wall, Scarborough's schedule of the daily division
of his time; just above it, upon a shelf, was a new alarm clock, the
bell so big that it overhung like a canopy. "You don't mean you're
going to get up at four?"
"Every morning--all winter," replied Scarborough, without stopping his
unpacking. "You see, I'm going to finish this year--take the two years
in one. Then I've registered in a law office--Judge Holcombe's. And
there's my speaking--I must practise that every day."
Pierson came back to the sitting-room and collapsed into a chair. "I
see you allow yourself five hours for sleep," he said. "It's too much,
old man. You're self-indulgent."
"That's a mistake," replied Scarborough. "Since making out the schedule
I've decided to cut sleep down to four hours and a half."
"That's more like it!"
"We all sleep too much," he continued. "And as I shan't smoke, or
drink, or worry, I'll need even less than the average man. I'm going
to do nothing but work. A man doesn't need much rest from mere work."
"What! No play?"
"Play all the time. I've simply changed my playthings."
Pierson seated himself at the table and stared gloomily at his friend.
"Look here, old man. For heaven's sake, don't let Olivia find out
about this program."
But Olivia did hear of it, and Pierson was compelled to leave his
luxury in the main street and to take the two remaining available rooms
at Scarborough's place. His bed was against the wall of Scarborough's
bedroom--the wall where the alarm clock was. At four o'clock on his
first morning he started from a profound sleep.
"My bed must be moved into my sitting-room to-day," he said to himself
as soon as the clamor of Scarborough's gong died away and he could
collect his thoughts. But at four o'clock the next morning the gong
penetrated the two walls as if they had not been there. "I see my
finish," he groaned, sitting up and tearing at his hair.
He tried to sleep again, but the joint pressure of Olivia's
memory-mirrored gray eyes and of disordered nerves from the racking
gong forced him to make an effort to bestir himself. Groaning and
muttering, he rose and in the starlight looked from his window.
Scarborough was going up the deserted street on his way to the woods
for his morning exercise. His head was thrown back and his chest
extended, and his long legs were covering four feet at a stride. "You
old devil!" said Pierson, his tone suggesting admiration and affection
rather than anger. "But I'll outwit you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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