nine o’clock
Repetition , I well knew by this time , was the secret of Saltram 's power to alienate , and of course one would never have seen him at his finest if one had n't seen him in his remorses . They set in mainly at this season and were magnificent , elemental , orchestral . I was quite aware that one of these atmospheric disturbances was now due ; but none the less , in our arduous attempt to set him on his feet as a lecturer , it was impossible not to feel that two failures were a large order , as we said , for a short course of five . This was the second time , and it was past nine o'clock ; the audience , a muster unprecedented and really encouraging , had fortunately the attitude of blandness that might have been looked for in persons whom the promise of -LRB- if I 'm not mistaken -RRB- An Analysis of Primary Ideas had drawn to the neighbourhood of Upper Baker Street . There was in those days in that region a petty lecture-hall to be secured on terms as moderate as the funds left at our disposal by the irrepressible question of the maintenance of five small Saltrams -- I include the mother -- and one large one . By the time the Saltrams , of different sizes , were all maintained we had pretty well poured out the oil that might have lubricated the machinery for enabling the most original of men to appear to maintain them . It was I , the other time , who had been forced into the breach , standing up there for an odious lamplit moment to explain to half a dozen thin benches , where earnest brows were virtuously void of anything so cynical as a suspicion , that we could n't so much as put a finger on Mr. Saltram .