At four o'clock he began a three-hour spell of work.

At night a four hours' spell--from nine to one, if they had no evening engagement, from midnight to four o'clock in the morning if they had been out.
"But, my darling child!" cried Barbara, aghast when she heard of this maniacal time-table, "you must put your foot down.

You mustn't let him do it.

He is killing himself." "No man," said I, in warm support of my wife, "can go on putting out creative work for more than four hours a day.

Quite famous novelists whom I meet at the Athenaeum have told me so themselves.