six o'clock
The hot airless night had become the hot airless day : in the garden the leaves on trees and shrubs drooped as under an invisible weight . All the stale smells of the day before persisted -- that of the medicaments on the shelves , of the unwetted dust on the roads , the sickly odour of malt from a neighbouring brewery . The blowflies buzzed about the ceiling ; on the table under the lamp a dozen or more moths lay singed and dead . Now it was nearing six o'clock ; clad in his thinnest driving-coat , Mahony sat and watched the man who had come to fetch him beat his horse to a lather . `` Mercy ! ... have a little mercy on the poor brute , '' he said more than once . He had stood out for some time against obeying the summons , which meant , at lowest , a ten-mile drive .