two o'clock
The old man adored himself ; from what he said it always appeared that he had made his wife and all her relations happy , that he had been munificent to his children , and a benefactor to his clerks and employés , and that every one in the street and all his acquaintances remembered him in their prayers . Whatever he did was always right , and if things went wrong with people it was because they did not take his advice ; without his advice nothing could succeed . In church he stood in the foremost place , and even made observations to the priests , if in his opinion they were not conducting the service properly , and believed that this was pleasing God because God loved him . At two o'clock every one in the warehouse was hard at work , except the old man , who still went on booming in his deep voice . To avoid standing idle , Laptev took some trimmings from a workgirl and let her go ; then listened to a customer , a merchant from Vologda , and told a clerk to attend to him . `` T. V. A. ! '' resounded on all sides -LRB- prices were denoted by letters in the warehouse and goods by numbers -RRB- .