noon
During the forenoon , therefore , by an effort which only those who have experienced it can understand , he ordered off all communication with larger troubles and confined himself in that stifling prison-house of the mind where the perplexities and toils of childhood become enormous and everything else in the world grows small . Up under the joists there was the terrible struggle of a fly in a web , at first more and more violent , then ceasing in a strain so fine that the ear could scarce take it ; a bee came in one window , went out another ; a rat , sniffing greedily at its hole , crept toward a crumb under a bench , ran back , crept nearer , seized it and was gone ; a toiling slate-pencil grated on its way as arduously as a wagon up a hill ; he had to teach a beginner its letters . These were the great happenings . At noon the same child that had brought him a note on the day before came with another : `` Kitty is going to the ball with Horatio . I shall be alone . We can have our talk uninterrupted . How unreasonable you are !