eight
o'clock
He changed positions and managed , by means of energy and all kinds of dirty tricks , after a year and a few months , to hold a position of trust as an independent manager of a newspaper kiosk . Because he had a pleasant way of speaking as well as a face that looked like that of an intelligent doll , the former locksmith soon had won a very large number of steady customers , for the most part female . In the morning a dozen saleswomen from a nearby department store , having purposely arrived too early , gathered around his kiosk to enjoy the dirty jokes and cheerful comments of Mr. Mechenmal . The bank officer Leopold Lehmann , who always arrived punctually at eight o'clock , to buy illustrated joke books and theological tracts , sometimes became impatient , because the cheerful saleswomen disturbed him as he tried to make his selection . And the school-teacher Theo Tontod , who tirelessly , and , as a rule , uselessly asked for the modern newspaper , `` The Other A , '' often got to school too late . Around noon , almost every day , the choral-singer Mabel Meier came , on the arm of an old man . She bought colorful , spicy newspapers , or sentimental ones , with long lyrical poems .