six
to eight o’clock in the morning
Monsieur Poiret junior , called `` junior '' to distinguish him from his brother Monsieur Poiret senior -LRB- now living in the Maison Vanquer , where Poiret junior sometimes dined , intending to end his days in the same retreat -RRB- , had spent thirty years in the Civil Service . Nature herself is not so fixed and unvarying in her evolutions as was Poiret junior in all the acts of his daily life ; he always laid his things in precisely the same place , put his pen in the same rack , sat down in his seat at the same hour , warmed himself at the stove at the same moment of the day . His sole vanity consisted in wearing an infallible watch , timed daily at the Hotel de Ville as he passed it on his way to the office . From six to eight o'clock in the morning he kept the books of a large shop in the rue Saint-Antoine , and from six to eight o'clock in the evening those of the Maison Camusot , in the rue des Bourdonnais . He thus earned three thousand francs a year , counting his salary from the government . In a few months his term of service would be up , when he would retire on a pension ; he therefore showed the utmost indifference to the political intrigues of the bureaus . Like his elder brother , to whom retirement from active service had proved a fatal blow , he would probably grow an old man when he could no longer come from his home to the ministry , sit in the same chair and copy a certain number of pages .