four o’clock
I began one note , in a six-syllable line , ` Oh , do not remember ' -- but that associated itself with the fifth of November , and became an absurdity . After many attempts , I wrote , ` My dear Agnes . Your letter is like you , and what could I say of it that would be higher praise than that ? I will come at four o'clock . Affectionately and sorrowfully , T.C. ' With this missive -LRB- which I was in twenty minds at once about recalling , as soon as it was out of my hands -RRB- , the ticket-porter at last departed . If the day were half as tremendous to any other professional gentleman in Doctors ' Commons as it was to me , I sincerely believe he made some expiation for his share in that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese . Although I left the office at half past three , and was prowling about the place of appointment within a few minutes afterwards , the appointed time was exceeded by a full quarter of an hour , according to the clock of St. Andrew 's , Holborn , before I could muster up sufficient desperation to pull the private bell-handle let into the left-hand door-post of Mr. Waterbrook 's house .