noon
He had made no friends in the place , not even an acquaintance , nor did he care to . What leisure time he had he devoted to what he now had come to consider as his life work -- the answering of blind ads in the Help Wanted columns of one morning and one evening paper -- the two mediums which seemed to carry the bulk of such advertising . For a while he had sought a better position by applying during the noon hour to such places as gave an address close enough to the department store in which he worked to permit him to make the attempt during the forty-five-minute period he was allowed for his lunch . But he soon discovered that nine-tenths of the positions were filled before he arrived , and that in the few cases where they were not he not only failed of employment , but was usually so delayed that he was late in returning to work after noon . By replying to blind ads evenings he could take his replies to the two newspaper offices during his lunch hour , thereby losing no great amount of time . Although he never received a reply , he still persisted as he found the attempt held something of a fascination for him , similar probably to that which holds the lottery devotee or the searcher after buried treasure -- there was always the chance that he would turn up something big . And so another month dragged by slowly .