eight in the evening
I was compelled , by the way , to forego an opening which a few months ago would have been the very summit of my ambition . You must know -LRB- possibly I told you -RRB- , that immediately after I passed , I put my name down as a candidate for a surgeonship on the books of several of the big steamship lines . It was done as a forlorn hope , for a man has usually to wait several years before his turn comes round . Well , just a week after I started here , I got a telegram one night from Liverpool : `` Join the Decia to-morrow as surgeon , not later than eight in the evening . '' It was from Staunton & Merivale , the famous South American firm , and the Decia is a fine 6000-ton passenger boat , doing the round journey by Bahia and Buenos Ayres to Rio and Valparaiso . I had a bad quarter of an hour , I can tell you . I do n't think I was ever so undecided about anything in my life .