five in the
morning
His finance in even this limited field had been brilliant . Other people paid , and he did the work ; and he did it with such ease that the others intriguing to crowd him out , suffered failure and came to him in the end to put things right . He became the village doctor 's assistant and dispenser at seventeen and induced his master to start a drug-store . He made the drug-store a success within two years , and meanwhile he studied Latin and Greek and mathematics in every spare hour he had -- getting up at five in the morning , and doing as much before breakfast as others did in a whole day . His doctor loved him and helped him ; a venerable Archdeacon , an Oxford graduate , gave him many hours of coaching , and he went to the University with three scholarships . These were sufficient to carry him through in three years , and there was enough profit-sharing from the drug-business he had founded on terms to shelter his mother and his younger brothers , while he took honours at the University . There he organized all that students organize , and was called in at last by the Bursar of his college to reorganize the commissariat , which he did with such success that the college saved five thousand dollars a year .