WORK. 121 



such occasions. He did not realise that he would be recog- 

 nised from his photographs, and I remember his being uneasy 

 at being obviously recognised by a stranger at the Crystal 

 Palace Aquarium. 



I must say something of his manner of working : one 

 characteristic of it was his respect for time ; he never forgot 

 how precious it was. This was shown, for instance, in the 

 v/ay in which he tried to curtail his holidays ; also, and more 

 clearly, with respect to shorter periods. He would often say, 

 that saving the minutes was the way to get work done ; he 

 showed this love of saving, the minutes in the difference he 

 felt between a quarter of an hour and ten minutes' work; he 

 never wasted a few spare minutes from thinking that it was 

 not worth while to set to work. I was often struck by his 

 way of working up to the very limit of his strength, so that 

 he suddenly stopped in dictating, with the words, " I believe 

 I mustn't do any more." The same eager desire not to lose 

 time was seen in his quick movements when at work. I 

 particularly remember noticing this when he was making an 

 experiment on the roots of beans, which required some care 

 in manipulation ; fastening the little bits of card upon the 

 roots was done carefully and necessarily slowly, but the in- 

 termediate movements were all quick ; taking a fresh bean, 

 seeing that the root was healthy, impaling it on a pin, fixing 

 it on a cork, and seeing that it was vertical, <S:c. ; all these 

 processes were performed with a kind of restrained eagerness. 

 He always gave one the impression of working with pleasure, 

 and not with any drag. I have an image, too, of him as he 

 recorded the result of some experiment, looking eagerly at 

 each root, &c., and then writing with equal eagerness. I 

 remember the quick movement of his head up and down as 

 he looked from the object to the notes. 



He saved a great deal of time through not having to do 

 things twice. Although he would patiently go on repeating 

 experiments where there was any good to be gained, he could 

 not endure having to repeat an experiment which ought, if 

 complete care had been taken, to have succeeded the first 

 7 



