three o'clock
It was very little comfort I could give them . `` I am sorry for you , '' I said . `` You get little enough , certainly , and yet the wonder to me is , not that industries conducted as these are do not pay you living wages , but that they are able to pay you any wages at all . '' Making my way back again after this to the peninsular city , toward three o'clock I stood on State Street , staring , as if I had never seen them before , at the banks and brokers ' offices , and other financial institutions , of which there had been in the State Street of my vision no vestige . Business men , confidential clerks , and errand boys were thronging in and out of the banks , for it wanted but a few minutes of the closing hour . Opposite me was the bank where I did business , and presently I crossed the street , and , going in with the crowd , stood in a recess of the wall looking on at the army of clerks handling money , and the cues of depositors at the tellers ' windows . An old gentleman whom I knew , a director of the bank , passing me and observing my contemplative attitude , stopped a moment .