six o'clock
Lola mounted the stairs and attended to the business in hand . When she came down the man was still standing at the threshold smoking an obfusticated pipe . He blinked at her as if she had been a human dynamo . `` Come round to Barbara 's Building at six o'clock and tell me how she is . '' He came on the stroke of six . The fame of Lola spread through the borough , and now she can walk feared , honoured , unmolested by night or by day through the streets of horror and crime , which neither I nor any other man -- no matter how courageous -- dare enter at certain hours without the magical protection of a policeman . Sunshine has come at last , both into this little backwater of the world by the sea and into my own life , and it is time I should end this futile record .