convince you that you are entirely wrong; what has made you so has
been my account of breakfasts, which are universal, and neither
consume time nor attract attention. I was at one this morning--I left
my rooms at twenty-five minutes to nine, and returned to them at five
minutes to nine, everything being over."

This scrupulous economy of time was to be characteristic of Charles
Dilke's whole life, and nothing impressed his contemporaries more at all
times than the "methodical bee-like industry" attributed to him by the
present Master of Trinity Hall. Mr. Beck, who came up to the college just
after Dilke left it, thus expands the impression:

"There remained in Trinity Hall in 1867 a vivid tradition that he was
one of the few men who never lost a minute, would even get in ten
minutes of work between river and Hall (which was in those days at
five o'clock); and much resembled the Roman who learned Greek in the
time saved from shaving. On the doorpost inside his bedroom over the
Buttery there remained in pencil the details of many days of work thus
pieced together." [Footnote: _Cambridge Review_, February 2nd, 1911.]

Judge Steavenson recalls how he used to be "bundled out" of his friend's
rooms the instant that the appointed hour for beginning to read had
arrived, and he did his best to mitigate the strenuousness of that
application. But there were stronger influences at work than his: Sir
Wentworth Dilke was fully satisfied with the assurance he had received, as
well he might be; but the grandfather never ceased to enforce the claims
of study. He wrote ceaselessly, but with constant exhortations that he
should be answered only when work and play allowed.

When the letters from Cambridge told of success in athletics, he