three o'clock
He would stick a book up in front of him -- Eppy something or other -- and read the whole time . Our four-course shilling table d'hote with Eppy , he would say , was a banquet fit for a prince ; without Eppy he was of opinion that a policeman would n't touch it . But he was one of those men that report things for the newspapers , and was given to exaggeration . `` A coffee-shop becomes a bit of a desert towards three o'clock ; and , after a while , young Tidelman , for that was his name , got to putting down his book and chatting to me . His father was dead ; which , judging from what he told me about the old man , must have been a bit of luck for everybody ; and his mother , it turned out , had come from my own village in Suffolk ; and that constituted a sort of bond between us , seeing I had known all her people pretty intimately . He was earning good money at a dairy , where his work was scouring milk-cans ; and his Christian name -- which was the only thing Christian about him , and that , somehow or another , did n't seem to fit him -- was Joseph . `` One afternoon he came into the shop looking as if he had lost a shilling and found sixpence , as the saying is ; and instead of drinking water as usual , sent the girl out for a pint of ale .