about ten o'clock
There came a day , a few weeks after I went to work for the Evening Press , when for once anyway the major did n't seem to have anything to say . It was in the middle of a blistering , smothering hot forenoon in early June , muggy and still and close , when a fellow breathing felt as though he had his nose buried in layers of damp cotton waste . The city room was a place fit to addle eggs , and from the composing room at the back the stenches of melting metals and stale machine oils came rolling in to us in nasty waves . With his face glistening through the trickling sweat , the major came in about ten o'clock , fanning himself with his hat , and when he spoke his greeting the booming note seemed all melted and gone out of his voice . He went through the city room into the room behind the partition , and passing through a minute later I saw him sitting there with one of Sidley 's exchanges unfolded across his knee , but he was n't reading it . Presently I saw him climbing laboriously up the stairs to the second floor where the chief had his office . At quitting time that afternoon I dropped into the place on the corner for a beer , and I was drinking it , as close to an electric fan as I could get , when Devore came in and made for where I was standing .