eight o'clock
CHAPTER VII . Leonard had been about six weeks with his uncle , and those weeks were well spent . Mr. Richard had taken him to his counting-house , and initiated him into business and the mysteries of double entry ; and in return for the young man 's readiness and zeal in matters which the acute trader instinctively felt were not exactly to his tastes , Richard engaged the best master the town afforded to read with his nephew in the evening . This gentleman was the head usher of a large school , who had his hours to himself after eight o'clock , and was pleased to vary the dull routine of enforced lessons by instructions to a pupil who took delightedly even to the Latin grammar . Leonard made rapid strides , and learned more in those six weeks than many a cleverish boy does in twice as many months . These hours which Leonard devoted to study Richard usually spent from home , -- sometimes at the houses of his grand acquaintances in the Abbey Gardens , sometimes in the Reading-Room appropriated to those aristocrats . If he stayed at home , it was in company with his head clerk , and for the purpose of checking his account-books , or looking over the names of doubtful electors .