five o’clock
Children were playing on the grass ; groups of people were loitering about , chatting and laughing ; but the man walked steadily up and down , unheeding and unheeded his spare , pale face looking as if it were incapable of bearing the expression of curiosity or interest . There was something in the man 's manner and appearance which told us , we fancied , his whole life , or rather his whole day , for a man of this sort has no variety of days . We thought we almost saw the dingy little back office into which he walks every morning , hanging his hat on the same peg , and placing his legs beneath the same desk : first , taking off that black coat which lasts the year through , and putting on the one which did duty last year , and which he keeps in his desk to save the other . There he sits till five o'clock , working on , all day , as regularly as the dial over the mantel-piece , whose loud ticking is as monotonous as his whole existence : only raising his head when some one enters the counting-house , or when , in the midst of some difficult calculation , he looks up to the ceiling as if there were inspiration in the dusty skylight with a green knot in the centre of every pane of glass . About five , or half-past , he slowly dismounts from his accustomed stool , and again changing his coat , proceeds to his usual dining-place , somewhere near Bucklersbury . The waiter recites the bill of fare in a rather confidential manner -- for he is a regular customer -- and after inquiring ` What 's in the best cut ? ' and ` What was up last ? '