six
o'clock
Despite repeated and positive assurances from Mrs. Maldon that she wanted the late edition and not the football edition on Saturday nights , the football edition was usually delivered , because the paper-boy could not conceive that any customer could sincerely not want the football edition . Rachel was glancing in a torpid condition at the advertisements of the millinery and trimming shops . She would have been more wakeful could she have divined the blow which she had escaped a couple of hours before . Between five and six o'clock , when she was upstairs in the large bedroom , Mrs. Maldon had said to her , `` Rachel -- '' and stopped . `` Yes , Mrs. Maldon , '' she had replied . And Mrs. Maldon had said , `` Nothing . '' Mrs. Maldon had desired to say , but in words carefully chosen : `` Rachel , I 've never told you that Louis Fores began life as a bank clerk , and was dismissed for stealing money .