two o'clock
The third son would , like Roger Stephen , be bound to a pewterer or watchmaker , the fourth to a mercer , and so on in a descending scale . But Roger , though the only child of a rich man , had been denied his natural ambition , and thrust as a boy into the third class . His mother had died young , and from the hour of her death -LRB- which the young man set down to harsh usage -RRB- he and his father had detested each other 's sight . In truth , old Humphrey Stephen was a violent tyrant and habitually drunk after two o'clock . Roger , self-repressed as a rule and sullen , found him merely abhorrent . During his mother 's lifetime , and because she could not do without him , he had slept at Steens and walked to and from his shop in Helleston ; but on the day after the funeral he packed and left home , taking with him old Malachi , a family retainer whom Humphrey had long ago lamed for life by flinging a crowbar at him in a fit of passion . So for twelve years he had lodged and taught Malachi his trade in the dirty , low-browed shop , over which a pewter basin hung for sign and clashed against the tilt whenever a sea-breeze blew .