My study-table, the size of a pocket-handkerchief, occupied on the right by the inkstand—a penny bottle—and on the left by the open exercise-book, gives me just the room which I need to wield the pen. I love that little piece of furniture, one of the first acquisitions of my early married life. It is easily moved where you wish: in front of the window, when the sky is cloudy; into the discreet light of a corner, when the sun is tiresome. In winter it allows you to come close to the hearth, where a log is blazing. Poor little walnut board, I have been faithful to you for half a century and more. Ink-stained, cut and scarred with the pen-knife, you know how to lend your support to my prose as you once did to my equations. This variation in employment leaves you indifferent; your patient back extends the same welcome to my formulæ of algebra and the formulæ of thought. I cannot boast this placidity; I find that the change has not increased my peace of mind: the hunt for ideas troubles the brain even more than does the hunt for the roots of an equation. You would never recognise me, little friend, if you could give a glance at my grey mane. Where is the cheerful face of former days, bright with enthusiasm and hope? I have aged, I have aged. And you, what a falling off, since you came to me from the dealer’s, gleaming and polished and smelling so good with your beeswax! Like your master, you have wrinkles, often my work, I admit; for how many times, in my impatience, have I not dug my pen into you, when, after its dip in the muddy inkpot, the nib refused to write decently! One of your corners is broken off; the boards are beginning to come loose. Inside you, I hear, from time to time, the plane of the Death-watch, who despoils old furniture. From year to year new galleries are excavated, endangering your solidity. The old ones show on the outside in the shape of tiny round holes. A stranger has seized upon the latter, excellent quarters, obtained without trouble. I see the impudent intruder run nimbly under my elbow and penetrate forthwith into the tunnel abandoned by the Death-watch. She is after game, this slender huntress, clad in black, busy collecting Wood-lice for her grubs. A whole nation is devouring you, you old table; I am writing on a swarm of insects! No support could be more appropriate to my entomological notes. What will become of you when your master is gone? Will you be knocked down for a franc, when the family come to apportion my poor spoils? Will you be turned into a stand for the pitcher beside the kitchen-sink? Will you be the plank on which the cabbages are shredded? Or will my children, on the contrary, agree among themselves and say: