quarter past seven
At times like this he would direct his eyes to the window and look out as clearly as he could , but unfortunately , even the other side of the narrow street was enveloped in morning fog and the view had little confidence or cheer to offer him . `` Seven o'clock , already '' , he said to himself when the clock struck again , `` seven o'clock , and there 's still a fog like this . '' And he lay there quietly a while longer , breathing lightly as if he perhaps expected the total stillness to bring things back to their real and natural state . But then he said to himself : `` Before it strikes quarter past seven I 'll definitely have to have got properly out of bed . And by then somebody will have come round from work to ask what 's happened to me as well , as they open up at work before seven o'clock . '' And so he set himself to the task of swinging the entire length of his body out of the bed all at the same time . If he succeeded in falling out of bed in this way and kept his head raised as he did so he could probably avoid injuring it .