two o'clock
You think , my brother , that this favourite of fortune is likely to favour your plea for your parishioners ? '' `` Dear and revered brother , '' replied Don Silverio , `` I came hither with no such illusions . If I had done , your biography of this functionary would have dispelled them . '' Nevertheless , although without hope , at two o'clock of that day he went to the audience which was granted him at the intervention of the bishop of the city , obtained by means of the vicar of Sant Anselmo . The Prefecture was situated in a palace of sixteenth century architecture , a noble and stately place of immense size , greatly injured by telegraph and telephone wires stretching all round it , the post-office and the tax offices being situated on the ground floor , and the great central court daubed over with fresh paint and whitewash . Some little soldiers in dingy uniforms , ill-cut and ill-fitting , stood about gates and doors . On the first floor were the apartments occupied by his Excellency .