six o'clock in the morning
before
By the aid of the lantern , and a good deal of dusting , he finally discovered the spot in which he then stood , and managed to trace out a doubtful line of road , between that and the place whither he was bound . There seemed to be few cross-roads , however , and such as there were he rapidly noted in his memory . In one place the road ran off in a kind of loop , to pass through an outlying village , and , by making a cross-cut at that point , he might save himself five or six miles . But since , on calculation , he found it would be at least six o'clock in the morning before he got to the loop in question , he decided not to risk abandoning , in the state he would then be in , the beaten track for any such problematical advantage . As he left the dirty waiting-room , and the invisible man with the lantern , the clock over the door marked five minutes past eight . Although it was more than twelve hours since he had eaten food , he was not -LRB- owing to having passed so much of the day in sleep -RRB- so hungry as he might have been . Nevertheless , appreciating what a task was before him , he would have given any thing that he could call his own for a good meal before starting .