Many a long year before that, in one of the bygone centuries,
a worthy citizen of Wrychester, Martin by name, had left a sum
of money to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral on condition
that as long as ever the Cathedral stood, they should cause to
be rung a bell from its smaller bell-tower for three minutes
before nine o'clock every morning, all the year round. What
Martin's object had been no one now knew--but this bell served
to remind young gentlemen going to offices, and boys going to
school, that the hour of their servitude was near. And Dick
Bewery, without a word, bolted half his coffee, snatched up
his book, grabbed at a cap which lay with more books on a
chair close by, and vanished through the open window. The
doctor laughed, laid aside his newspaper, and handed his cup
across the table.

"I don't think you need bother yourself about Dick's ever
being late, Mary," he said. "You are not quite aware of the
power of legs that are only seventeen years old. Dick could
get to any given point in just about one-fourth of the time
that I could, for instance--moreover, he has a cunning
knowledge of every short cut in the city."

Mary Bewery took the empty cup and began to refill it.

"I don't like him to be late," she remarked. "It's the
beginning of bad habits."

"Oh, well!" said Ransford indulgently. "He's pretty free from
anything of that sort, you know. I haven't even suspected him
of smoking, yet."