He found one hair brush on the floor, the other on the bed, and brushed his hair; donned his coat, buttoning it and smoothing it down about his shapely torso with a momentary touch of complacency; glanced at the mirror; twisted up his moustache; then stood waiting for his colour to go down.
Suddenly, with one of his quick impulses, he sprang at the bookcase, drew out the Epictetus—it was a little book, bound in 'ooze' calf of an olive-green colour—and read these words (the book opened there):—
'To the rational animal only is the irrational intolerable.
He lowered the book and repeated the phrase aloud.
3
A little later—red about the ears, and given to sudden starts when the swinging pantry doors opened to let a student waiter in or out—he sat, quite erect, in the dining room and bolted a boarding-house breakfast of stewed prunes, oatmeal, fried steak, fried potatoes, fried mush swimming in brown sugar syrup, and coffee. The Discourses of Epictetus lay at his elbow.
After this he walked—stiffly self-conscious, book under arm—over to Simpson Street, and took a chair and an Inter Ocean at Schultz and Schwartz's, among the line of those waiting to be shaved.
This accomplished he paused outside, on the curb, to pencil this entry in a red pocket account-book:—
'Shave—10 c.'
He wavered when passing Donovan's; stepped in and consumed a frosted maple shake. Which necessitated the further entry in the red book:—