“Shall I accept? Shall I refuse?” continued the inner voice. Pooh, let’s accept! An heroic method of learning to swim is to leap boldly into the sea. Let us hurl ourselves head first into the algebraical gulf; and perhaps the imminent danger of drowning will call forth efforts capable of bringing me to land. I know nothing of what he wants. It makes no difference: let’s go ahead and plunge into the mystery. I shall learn by teaching. It was a fine courage that drove me full tilt into a province which I had not yet thought of entering. My twenty-year-old confidence was an incomparable lever. “Very well,” I replied. “Come the day after to-morrow at five, and we’ll begin.” This twenty-four hours’ delay concealed a plan. It secured me the respite of a day, the blessed Thursday, which would give me time to collect my forces. Thursday comes. The sky is grey and cold. In this horrid weather a grate well-filled with coke has its charms. Let’s warm ourselves and think. Well, my boy, you’ve landed yourself in a nice predicament! How will you manage to-morrow? With a book, plodding all through the night, if necessary, you might scrape up something resembling a lesson, just enough to fill the dread hour more or less. Then you could see about the next: sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. But you haven’t the book. And it’s no use running out to the bookshop. Algebraical treatises are not current wares. You’ll have to send for one, which will take a fortnight at least. And I’ve promised for to-morrow, for to-morrow certain! Another argument and one that admits of no reply: funds are low; my last pecuniary resources lie in the corner of a drawer. I count the money: it amounts to twelve sous, which is not enough. Must I cry off? Rather not! One resource suggests itself: a highly improper one, I admit, not far removed, indeed, from larceny. O quiet paths of algebra, you are my excuse for this venial sin! Let me confess the temporary embezzlement.