half past ten a.m
`` Father , I want to speak to you ! '' `` Come in , my dear child . But I ca n't spare more than five minutes . '' And the Reader glanced despairingly at a clock , the hands of which were pointing to half past ten a.m. . How it was that , after an eight o'clock breakfast , it always took so long for a man to settle himself to his work he really could not explain . Not that his conscience did not sometimes suggest the answer , pointing to a certain slackness and softness in himself -- the primal shrinking from work , the primal instinct to sit and dream -- that had every day to be met and conquered afresh , before the student actually found himself in his chair , or lecturing from his desk with all his brains alert . Anyway , the Reader , when there was no college or university engagement to pin him down , would stand often -- `` spilling the morning in recreation '' ; in other words , gossiping with his wife and children , or loitering over the newspapers , till the inner monitor turned upon him .