two o’clock
`` Now , gentlemen ... '' And the sitting of the board began . `` If they knew , '' he thought , bending his head with a significant air as he listened to the report , `` what a guilty little boy their president was half an hour ago . '' And his eyes were laughing during the reading of the report . Till two o'clock the sitting would go on without a break , and at two o'clock there would be an interval and luncheon . It was not yet two , when the large glass doors of the boardroom suddenly opened and someone came in . All the officials sitting on the further side under the portrait of the Tsar and the eagle , delighted at any distraction , looked round at the door ; but the doorkeeper standing at the door at once drove out the intruder , and closed the glass door after him . When the case had been read through , Stepan Arkadyevitch got up and stretched , and by way of tribute to the liberalism of the times took out a cigarette in the boardroom and went into his private room .