nine o'clock in the morning
He did n't know which were worse , the knowing eyes or the innocent ones . He had to be at the shop by nine o'clock , too , to force that poor , dizzy , aching head of his to its eight hours ' work . In this unnerved , attenuated state , this mortal paleness of mind and body , it was terrible to have to face the robust reality of `` Rickman 's '' . At nine o'clock in the morning it was more real to him than any real thing ; it even assumed an abominable personality ; it was an all-compelling , all-consuming power that sucked from him his time , his life , his energy , and for six days out of the seven required of him his soul . That at the same time it provided him with the means of bodily subsistence only added to the horror of the thing . It was as if `` Rickman 's '' , destroyer and preserver , renewed his life every quarter day that it might draw in , devour , annihilate it as before . There was a diabolical precision in the action of the machine that made and unmade him .