about half past four
in the afternoon
His whole mind , by now , had crystallized into that hard-faceted , sharp-edged determination . The sore masculine vanity that had kept him from appealing to the man most likely to be able to help him was almost incredible now . From the railway station in Chicago , the moment he got in , he telephoned Jimmy Wallace at his newspaper office . It was then about half past four in the afternoon . Jimmy could n't leave for another hour , it seemed . It was his afternoon at home to press agents , and he always gave them till five-thirty to drop in . But he did n't think there were likely to be any more to-day , and if Rodney would come over ... Rodney got into a taxi and came , and found the critic at his shabby old desk under a green-shaded electric light , in the midst of a vast solitude , the editorial offices of an evening newspaper at that hour being about the loneliest place in the world .