three o'clock
precisely
However , I whiled away the morning in that apartment by making a pretty thorough study of a file of the _ Advocate _ , in the course of which I took notes and made memoranda of suggestions which would have kept an editor busy for a week or two had he acted upon one half of them . The time thus spent was far from wasted , since it gave me more of an insight into current politics -LRB- as reflected in the pages of this particular organ -RRB- than I had obtained during my whole life in England up till then , and it gave me a thorough grasp of the policy of the _ Advocate _ . After a somewhat Barmecidal feast in a Fleet Street eating-house -LRB- domestic expenditure left me very short of funds at this time -RRB- , I returned to my post and wrote a political leading article which I ventured to think at least the equal in persuasive force and profundity of anything I had read that morning . At three o'clock precisely , my name , written on a slip of paper , was placed on the editorial table . There were then nine other people in the waiting-room . At four I began a second leading article , which was finished at half-past five . At a quarter to six the manuscript of both effusions was sent in to the editor .