diff --git a/early-init.el b/early-init.el
index 2db483c..f7adcf5 100644
--- a/early-init.el
+++ b/early-init.el
@@ -24,9 +24,7 @@
 Tell the Emacs startup time and number of garbage-collections
 instead of the banal
 \"For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type \\[about-emacs].\""
-  (message
-   (concat (emacs-init-time) ", gc ran " (number-to-string gcs-done) " times"
-	   )))
+  (message "%s, gc ran %s times" (emacs-init-time) gcs-done))
 
 (setq initial-scratch-message (purecopy "\
 ;; Write some lisp in this buffer and it can be executed, either with