nine to three
o'clock
He was also showing a great improvement in his grammar and pronunciation -- the fruit of diligent attendance at the evening school . The public , being thus continually informed that orders for the `` Cosmopolitan Window Fastener '' could not possibly be filled under two months , very naturally began to send in orders for the invaluable invention , to be filled after that period . Every mail brought hundreds of them from all parts of the country . The Company -- that is , Wesley Tiffles -- sat at their desk in the Broadway office from , nine to three o'clock , exhibiting the window fastener to hundreds of visitors , and receiving orders rather as a matter of favor to the customer than to the Company . At the end of a month , when orders to the amount of nearly seventy-five thousand dollars had been received -- every Northern and Western State being extensively represented on the books -- the Company issued another advertisement , to the effect that , owing to the overwhelming pressure of business , they were willing to dispose of patent rights for two of the States . There was a rush of applicants , to all of whom the Company could truthfully exhibit large and genuine orders from all the States . The rights for two States were readily sold , and the Company then found that they could spare one more for a fair compensation ; and so on , until every State in the Union had been disposed of , and the Company had not an inch of United States territory left .