My workshop was immediately under father's bed, and the filing and
tapping in making cogwheels, journals, cams, etc., must, no doubt,
have annoyed him, but with the permission he had granted in his mind,
and doubtless hoping that I would soon tire of getting up at one
o'clock, he impatiently waited about two weeks before saying a word. I
did not vary more than five minutes from one o'clock all winter, nor
did I feel any bad effects whatever, nor did I think at all about the
subject as to whether so little sleep might be in any way injurious;
it was a grand triumph of will-power over cold and common comfort and
work-weariness in abruptly cutting down my ten hours' allowance of
sleep to five. I simply felt that I was rich beyond anything I could
have dreamed of or hoped for. I was far more than happy. Like Tam o'
Shanter I was glorious, "O'er a' the ills o' life victorious."
Father, as was customary in Scotland, gave thanks and asked a blessing
before meals, not merely as a matter of form and decent Christian
manners, for he regarded food as a gift derived directly from the
hands of the Father in heaven.
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