four o'clock
He had not been idle during that hour . He had made more than one attempt to prepare some sort of a composition , but both ideas and words utterly failed him . He could not even think of a subject , much less cover two pages of letter paper with comments upon it . By four o'clock despair had settled down upon him , and he sat at his desk doing nothing , and waiting he hardly knew for what . Another hour passed , and still Bert had made no start , and still the doctor sat at his desk absorbed in his book and apparently quite oblivious of the boy before him . Six o'clock drew near , and with it the early dusk of an autumn evening . Bert was growing faint with hunger , and , oh !