about seven o'clock
On the third afternoon , when I returned to the quay after my dinner , Woodrow told me he had found a skipper who would sail for Southampton at the end of the week , and was willing to take me as ship 's boy . He assured me that I could hope for nothing better to begin with , and the voyage would be long enough for me to try my sea legs , and , as he believed , to cure me of my fancy for a sea life . I was to visit the skipper at the Angel tavern that evening , and if he liked my figurehead , as Woodrow put it , the matter could be settled there and then . Accordingly , about seven o'clock , I met Woodrow at the corner of the Bridge , by the Leather Hall , and accompanied him to the Angel in Redcliffe Street , where he presented me to his friend , Captain Reddaway . After the usual jocose allusions to my height , to which I was now fairly inured , the skipper asked me a great many questions about navigation , feigned a vast surprise at my ignorance , and supplied the answers himself , to impress me , I suppose , with his own stores of knowledge . Then the two mariners settled down over their pipes and beer to a conversation in which I was not expected to take a part ; indeed , it consisted chiefly of reminiscences of voyages they had made together , and , though entertaining enough at first , by and by became insufferably tedious . For politeness ' sake they included me in the conversation from time to time by waving their pipes at me , and I did not like to risk hurting the feelings of my new employer by showing how wearied I was , or by leaving them ; so that it was not till near ten o'clock that I managed to escape , and then only because they had both fallen asleep .