one o’clock precisely
He is a little mad , I think , ' said Mr. Nickleby , calling up a charitable look , ` but he is useful enough , poor creature -- useful enough . ' The kind-hearted gentleman omitted to add that Newman Noggs , being utterly destitute , served him for rather less than the usual wages of a boy of thirteen ; and likewise failed to mention in his hasty chronicle , that his eccentric taciturnity rendered him an especially valuable person in a place where much business was done , of which it was desirable no mention should be made out of doors . The other gentleman was plainly impatient to be gone , however , and as they hurried into the hackney cabriolet immediately afterwards , perhaps Mr. Nickleby forgot to mention circumstances so unimportant . There was a great bustle in Bishopsgate Street Within , as they drew up , and -LRB- it being a windy day -RRB- half-a-dozen men were tacking across the road under a press of paper , bearing gigantic announcements that a Public Meeting would be holden at one o'clock precisely , to take into consideration the propriety of petitioning Parliament in favour of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company , capital five millions , in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each ; which sums were duly set forth in fat black figures of considerable size . Mr. Bonney elbowed his way briskly upstairs , receiving in his progress many low bows from the waiters who stood on the landings to show the way ; and , followed by Mr. Nickleby , dived into a suite of apartments behind the great public room : in the second of which was a business-looking table , and several business-looking people . ` Hear ! ' cried a gentleman with a double chin , as Mr. Bonney presented himself .