There was a striking regularity in the order of his household. Everything went on almost as if by clockwork. He asked me one day whether I had ever noticed that the sound of a bell was scarcely ever heard in his house, save when someone came to the hall-door. He was, he said, strictly punctual himself, and he had trained his servants to habits of the strictest punctuality. He could afford, I knew, to take some trouble with them, for they were very slow to leave his service. His visitors saw year after year the best proof of a good master in the familiar faces of those by whom he was served. As everything was done at its appointed time, there was no need for a bell to be rung. His meals, his medicine, everything was brought to the exact minute. No one was summoned, for no one was ever late. In the days when he was still strong enough to drive out, he had been often troubled by the unpunctuality of his coachman:-- "I advised him to _aim_ at being five minutes before the appointed time. Of course I only _advised_ this--to have ordered it would merely have changed the appointed hour. Just as the allowance of five minutes' grace at the Post Office simply alters the hour of attendance from 10.0 to 10.5 a.m., and does nothing to secure punctuality. "Still the result was unsatisfactory, and I was irritated and annoyed by the man's persistence. He was honest and sober, and had a wife and several children. Dismissal, therefore, was out of the question. I thought of fines, with rewards for continued punctuality; but I have small faith in either fines or rewards. "At last it occurred to me to adopt the Post Office rule, under which any one accused of misconduct is called upon to give such written explanation 'as he may desire.' "The duty was entrusted to the footman, with instructions to call for explanation in every instance of lateness, even when no more than a fraction of a minute, the hall clock being taken as an indisputable standard." The result was that the man became so exact to his time that in twelve months "there were only six cases of lateness, amounting in the aggregate to eight minutes."