five o'clock
`` Nobody liked going to work , but it ` ad to be done and as Farmer Gill said that tigers went to sleep all day and only came out toward evening we was a bit comforted . Not a soul went up to the ` Cauliflower ' that evening for fear of coming ` ome in the dark , but as nothing ` appened that night we began to ` ope as the tiger ` ad travelled further on . `` Bob Pretty laughed at the whole thing and said ' e did n't believe there was a tiger ; but nobody minded wot ' e said , Bob Pretty being , as I 've often told people , the black sheep o ' Claybury , wot with poaching and , wot was worse , ` is artfulness . `` But the very next morning something ` appened that made Bob Pretty look silly and wish ' e ` ad n't talked quite so fast ; for at five o'clock Frederick Scott , going down to feed ` is hins , found as the tiger ` ad been there afore ` im and ` ad eaten no less than seven of 'em . The side of the hin - ` ouse was all broke in , there was a few feathers lying on the ground , and two little chicks smashed and dead beside 'em . `` The way Frederick Scott went on about it you 'd ` ardly believe . He said that Govinment ` ud ` ave to make it up to ` im , and instead o ' going to work ' e put the two little chicks and the feathers into a pudding basin and walked to Cudford , four miles off , where they ` ad a policeman .