six o'clock
School prefects at Wrykyn did weekly essays for the headmaster . Those who had got their scholarships at the ` Varsity , or who were going up in the following year , used to take their essays to him after school and read them to him -- an unpopular and nerve-destroying practice , akin to suicide . Trevor had got his scholarship in the previous November . He was due at the headmaster 's private house at six o'clock on the present Tuesday . He was looking forward to the ordeal not without apprehension . The essay subject this week had been `` One man 's meat is another man 's poison '' , and Clowes , whose idea of English Essay was that it should be a medium for intempestive frivolity , had insisted on his beginning with , `` While I can not conscientiously go so far as to say that one man 's meat is another man 's poison , yet I am certainly of opinion that what is highly beneficial to one man may , on the other hand , to another man , differently constituted , be extremely deleterious , and , indeed , absolutely fatal . '' Trevor was not at all sure how the headmaster would take it .