six o'clock
He looked back and saw the things that stood out like hills above the plain -- that night , years ago , when he was whipped , the day that he first met Mr. Zanti , the first day at school , the day when he said good-bye to Cards , the hour , at the end of it all , when they hissed him , that last evening with Stephen , the day with his mother ... and then , quite lately , that afternoon when Mr. Zanti asked him to go to London , the little girl with the black frock on the hill ... last of all , that kiss -LRB- never mind with whom -RRB- on Easter morning -- all these things had made him what he was -- yes , and all the people -- Frosted Moses , Stephen , his father , his mother , Bobby Galleon , Cards , Mr. Zanti , the little girl . As he swung his legs he knew that everything that he did afterwards would be , in some way , attached to these earlier things and these earlier people . He had brave hopes and brave ambitions and a warm heart as he flung himself into bed ; it speaks well for him that , on the night before he set out on his adventure , he slept like the child that he really was . But he knew that he would wake at six o'clock . He had determined that it should be so , and the clocks were striking as he opened his eyes . It was very dark and the cocks crowed beyond his open window , and the misty morning swept in and blew his lighted candle up and down . He dressed in the blue serge suit with a blue tie fastened in a sailor 's knot .