half past seven
Ninety-nine out of every hundred of them did not believe in such things as those : they had much more sense than to join Trades Unions : on the contrary , they believed in placing themselves entirely at the mercy of their good , kind Liberal and Tory masters . Very frequently it happened , when only a few men were working together , that it was not convenient to make tea for breakfast or dinner , and then some of them brought tea with them ready made in bottles and drank it cold ; but most of them went to the nearest pub and ate their food there with a glass of beer . Even those who would rather have had tea or coffee had beer , because if they went to a temperance restaurant or coffee tavern it generally happened that they were not treated very civilly unless they bought something to eat as well as to drink , and the tea at such places was really dearer than beer , and the latter was certainly quite as good to drink as the stewed tea or the liquid mud that was sold as coffee at cheap ` Workmen 's ' Eating Houses . There were some who were -- as they thought -- exceptionally lucky : the firms they worked for were busy enough to let them work two hours ' overtime every night -- till half past seven -- without stopping for tea . Most of these arrived home about eight , completely flattened out . Then they had some tea and a wash and before they knew where they were it was about half past nine . Then they went to sleep again till half past four or five the next morning .