five o'clock to seven
He said it gruffly , but he was a gruff man . He left early . He might have meant anything or nothing . Louis could not decide which ; or rather , from five o'clock to seven he had come to alternating decisions every five minutes . It was just about at the time when Louis ought to have been removing his paper cuff-shields in order to start for Mrs. Maldon 's that he discovered the full extent of his debt to the petty-cash box . He sat alone at a rough and dirty desk in the inner room of the works `` office , '' surrounded by dust-covered sample vases and other vessels of all shapes , sizes , and tints -- specimens of Horrocleave 's `` Art Lustre Ware , '' a melancholy array of ingenious ugliness that nevertheless filled with pride its creators . He looked through a dirt-obscured window and with unseeing gaze surveyed a muddy , littered quadrangle whose twilight was reddened by gleams from the engine-house .