ten in the morning
But he never read in his own house , invariably falling into a sweet and placid slumber , from which he was never disturbed till his daughter kissed him as she went to bed . Then he would walk about the room , and look at his watch , and shuffle uneasily through half-an-hour till his conscience allowed him to take himself to his chamber . He was a man of no pursuits in his own house . But from ten in the morning till five , or often till six , in the evening , his mind was active in some work . It was not now all law , as it used to be . In the drawer of the old piece of furniture which stood just at the right hand of his own arm-chair there were various books hidden away , which he was sometimes ashamed to have seen by his clients , -- poetry and novels and even fairy tales . For there was nothing Mr. Wharton could not read in his chambers , though there was nothing that he could read in his own house .