six o'clock
`` I want him . '' With an innocent shrewd look at her mother 's face , Imogen kept silence . It was father , of course ! Val did come ` like a shot ' at six o'clock . Imagine a cross between a pickle and a Forsyte and you have young Publius Valerius Dartie . A youth so named could hardly turn out otherwise . When he was born , Winifred , in the heyday of spirits , and the craving for distinction , had determined that her children should have names such as no others had ever had .