four o'clock
She had an assistant , too ; at least , she confiscated him from the press department -- one Leon Greenberg , a young night student from New York University , with an enormous profile rendered positively carnivorous of thrust by his struggle up from First Street and Avenue A , which is mire with a pull to it . Her own capacity was unnamed . She was probably still down on the books as stenographer , although at fifty dollars a week now , and it was six years since she had taken a letter . It was a gray day in cold and tardy spring when Bruce Visigoth sent for her -- one of those heavy afternoons that darken up at four o'clock and press thick as gravy against the windows . He was seated at his desk , hands laced at the back of his head and one foot propped on an open drawer , his male stenographer typing at the remote corner of a wide and rather luxuriously appointed office . Except for the green cone of light over him , the room was plushy with dusk . `` About that play -- '' he began .