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90 him some document to sign in the evening. 'I will not sign it now,' he would say. 'Be here to-night at one o'clock, or at four in the morning; we will work together.' On these occasions I used to have myself waked some minutes before the appointed hour. As in coming downstairs I used to pass in front of the door of his small apartment, I used to enter to ask if he had been waked. The invariable answer was, 'He has just rung for Constant,' and at the same moment he used to make his appearance, dressed in his white dressing-gown, with a Madras handkerchief round his head. When by chance he had got to the study before me, I used to find him walking up and down with his hands behind his back, or helping himself from his snuff-box, less from taste than from preoccupation, for he only used to smell at his pinches, and his handkerchiefs were never soiled with the snuff. His ideas developed as he dictated, with an abundance and clearness which showed that his attention was firmly riveted to the subject with which he was dealing; they sprang from his head even as Minerva sprang, fully armed, from the head of Jupiter. When the work was finished, and sometimes in the midst of it, he would send for sherbet and ices. He used to ask me which I preferred, and went so far in his solicitude as to advise me which would be better for my health. Thereupon he would return to bed, if only to sleep an hour, and could resume