MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[0318] friends.^? [0319] I don't know. [0320] A few words about the boy. [0321] This cannot
be avoided.
[0322] He was a precocious boy. [0323] He was not good at his lessons,
neither could he see the use of them. [0324] He attended his classes
with his mind elsewhere, or blank.

[0325] He attended his classes with his mind elsewhere. [0326] He liked sums,
[0327] but not the way they were taught. [0328] What he liked was the manipulation
of concrete numbers. [0329] All calculation seemed to him idle in which
the nature of the unit was not specified. [0330] He made a practice, alone
and in company, of mental arithmetic. [0331] And the figures then marshalling
in his mind thronged it with colours and with forms.

[0332] What tedium.

[0333] He was the eldest child [0334] of poor and sickly parenys parents. [0335] He
often heard them talk of what they ought to do in order to have
better health and more money. [0336] He was struck each time by the vague-
ness of these palavers and not surprised that they never led to
anything. [0337] His father was a salesman, in a shop. [0338] He used to say to
his wife, I really must find work for the evenings and the Saturday
afternoon. [0339] He added, faintly, And the Sunday.

[0340] His wife would answer,
But if you do any more work you'll fall ill. [0341] And Mr Saposcat had to
allow that he would indeed be ill-advised to forego his Sunday rest.
[0342] These people at least are grown up. [0343] But his health was not so poor
that he could not work in the evenings and the Sat of the week and
the Saturday afternoon. [0344] At what, said his wife, work at what? [0345] Perhaps