about 6 p.m.
Sometimes they would come upstairs to discuss some feature of their day 's work with Mr. Strangman , or to put in an article to the Literary Editor , but , as a whole , she hardly learned to know them , even by name . Then there were the office boys , a moving , fluctuating crowd ; always in mischief , always dirty , always irrepressibly cheerful . For the rest , her work -- one might almost say her life -- lay between the four walls of the office room , with the shaking vibrations of the engines under her feet and the musty , curious smell of papers in the making and pile upon pile of papers that had been made all round her . She arrived at 9.30 and left about 6 p.m. , and by then she was too numbed -- for the working of a typewriter is monotonous work -- to do anything save walk with the hurrying crowds as far as Charing Cross and take a bus from there to Montague Square . But since work filled her days she had less time for discontent or depression . Sometimes she would be tempted to wander off the direct route on her way home and she would walk up to Piccadilly and past the region of brightly-lighted shops , watching the faces in the crowd round her , envying those who met friends and stopped to talk to them , following with rather wistful eyes the couples who passed , hand clasped in hand ; but generally speaking she was too tired in the evenings to do anything save go straight home , eat a hasty supper and tumble into bed . Of Rose she saw , as the other had prophesied , very little .